tronomy, in its present high state of improvement. We may add, that the year of the cali yuga, B. C. 3102, was a remarkable astronomical epoch, when, according to La Place, the mean motion of Jupiter was slowest. Another conspicuous date in the Hindoo astronomy is the year A. D. 1491, when according to the same profound mathematician, the mean motion of Saturn was the most rapid.

The knowledge of the Indian sages at a period so remote, and on a point, which required a series of observations so accurate and precise as the precession of the equinoxes, is not a little remarkable. Three hundred and sixty degrees are equal to 21,600 minutes or to 1,296,000 seconds, which, divided by 54 seconds, the supposed annual precession, gives 24,000 years as the quotient. As indeed the actual movement of the zodiac has been ascertained to be only 50 seconds annually, the real quotient is larger than that now stated, amounting to 25,755-the true extent of the annus magnus, or great year of the firmament. But we repeat that it required no small degree of astronomical science as well as the accumulation of a vast store of facts, to enable the star-gazers of the east to detect a movement in the heavenly bodies so little likely to be anticipated, and to arrive at a result so near the truth in estimating its annua rate. Our main object, however, is to draw the attention of the reader to the principle on which many of the great epochs of an iquity were foundedthe multiplication of certain cycles into one another. Hence were produced imaginary periods, the larger part of which was usually assigned to the rule of the gods, or to dynasties of immortals, whose government had no resemblance to the ordinary current of human events. The ignorant might be thereby misled, and there is no doubt that they were intentionally kept in darkness; but the more learned were taught to penetrate the mystery and to perceive in those immense epochs, which seem to overwhelm the imagination, nothing more than certain arithmetical combinations technically arranged.

Every one knows that Cicero reprobated the foolish and arrogant pretensions of the Chaldeans to the possession of a series of recorded observations of the stars during 470,000 years. Diodorus is more particular, and raises it to 373,000 years before the expedition of Alexander into Asia. The correct numbers, according to the author whom we have already quoted, is somewhat more, being 473,040 the additional forty years having, it is probable, been omitted by the historian, as insignificant in so great an amount. But this cycle of 475,040 was, like the Hindoo and Egyptian epochs, formed by the multiplication of two factors; the first, 234, which is the square of the Chaldean saros 18, and

the second, 1460, being the Sothiacal period of tropical years, as distinguished from 1461 Egyptian years. In this case, the square of 18, instead of the simple number, appears to have been employed, in order to furnish a larger period, approximating more nearly to the true lunar motions than the saros itself, which in fact consisted of 18 years and eleven days.

The Sothiacal period, which we have already repeatedly named, was likewise in some degree artificial, though it perhaps originated in the imperfect state of astronomical science. Some time after the year of 365 days had been adopted, a discrepancy was observed between the return of the seasons and the annual revolutions of the calendar. It was at length discovered, that in 1460 years365X4--the tropical and civil years would again coincide; and as the latter originally began with the heliacal rising of Sothis or the dogstar, the cycle of adjustment was known by that appella tion. In the course of 1460 years, the first day of the first month, Thoth, must have retrograded through all the seasons, until it came round again to the same place, at the rate of one day in four years; and it was probably to this that the Egyptian priests alluded in their mysterious way when they told Herodotus that from the reign of their first King Menes to Sethon, priest of Vulcan, the sun had four times altered his course; that it had risen twice where it now sets, and had twice set where it now rises, and this without producing any change in Egypt; that the productions of the earth had been the same, and that there had not been more disease or mortality than usual.

This statement, which it is manifest the historian himself did not understand, and which has been denounced by modern authors as a dream, a fable, and a falsehood, may be easily explained on the ground of the distinction between the vague and the tropical year. In the course of the cycle of 1460 years the sun might be said to rise once and set once in every degree of the ecliptic, because all the days of the vague or move, able year had gone a complete round throughout the seasons; that is, the first day of Thoth, which at the beginning of the period might be in June, would at the middle of it, or after the lapse of 730 years, be in December, and at the end of it, or after the lapse of other 730 years, would again be in June. But, as the interval from Menes to Sethon included 1700 years, or 240 more than a complete revolution of the cycle, the sun in the course of that prolonged period must have risen twice and set twice in some degrees of the ecliptic. The meaning, however, is more obvious than the accuracy of the expression, which is only true in a certain sense. The priests, we presume, intended to convey to the Greek traveller nothing more than this simple fact,

that the sun in the summer months had twice risen in the winter signs of the zodiac, and twice risen in the winter months in the summer signs; a result which in the course of time would be repeated everywhere but for the expedients introduced into the Julian and Gregorian calendars.

While speaking of artificial epochs and the technical apparatus of ancient astronomy, we may mention the Julian period, invented by Scaliger at a recent date, as a convenient instrument for fixing events in history, whether sacred or profane. The usual references to the eras of creation and redemption are sufficiently specific for ordinary purposes, and within certain geographical limits; but as different versions of the Sacred Writings exhibit a variety in their chronological systems, and as the Eastern Church has adopted one method and the Western Church another, it was thought necessary to construct such a scheme of dates as might enable the authors of all countries to meet on common ground, without sacrificing any opinions, or pledging their belief to any particular views, Protestant or Catholic. To accomplish this object, the learned chronologer, to whom we have alluded, resolved to multiply into one another the three numbers 28, 19, and 15, being the cycles of the sun, and of the moon, and of the indiction respectively. The two former are known to every reader; the last was a cycle used only by the Romans for appointing the times of certain public taxes, as expressed in the Code de tributo indicto. It was adopted by Constantine in place of the heathen Olympiads, and was subsequently used in the Acts of the General Councils, by the Emperors, and Popes. The product of the three numbers just mentioned is 28X19X157980; an epoch, the supposed commencement of which extends back some hundreds of years before the creation of the world. This period assumes that in its first year the cycle of the sun was 1, the cycle of the moon was 1, and the cycle of indiction was 1; but the three cycles can never so correspond again till the end of it. Every intermediate year will be distinguished by different numbers of these cycles until the last year, 7980, when the division by the prime numbers 28, 19, and 15, respectively, will leave no remainders; the numbers themselves then expressing the last years of each cycle. It began B. C. 4714, and will terminate in the year 3266 of the Christian era.

As there are in all books of chronology frequent allusions to the periods and epochs which we have now explained, we consider the above remarks necessary to a full understanding of the intricate subjects on which Mr. Mure has undertaken to instruct the public. Although his treatises respect separate branches of Egyptian learning, their object and bearing are essentially the

same, being devoted to an investigation of the recondite principles which appear to have been employed by the philosophers of Thebes and Memphis for the measurement of time.

1

The "Remarks on the Chronology of the Egyptian Dynasties" were suggested by some conclusions of the Champollions in regard to the reign of Sesostris; a hero, whose existence, whose exploits, and whose era have been long contested among historians and antiquaries. The accounts transmitted by the ancients themselves concerning the age of this prince are very vague and contradictory. Herodotus, who derived his information from the Egyptian priests, places him two generations before the Trojan war. Manetho, who was himself an Egyptian priest, carries back his reign several generations anterior to the date assigned by Herodotus; and Diodorus makes him many generations more ancient than either. Josephus recognized in this conqueror the Sesac who took Jerusalem in the days of Rehoboam; not being able to find any authentic record of a conquest of Judea or Palestine by the Egyptians before that period. Modern writers on the strength of recent discoveries have identified the Sesostris of the Greeks with a King Ramesses, whose name occurs on the Egyptian monuments, connected with emblems denoting that he was a great warrior and conqueror. Many of the facts elicited by the same researches so far corroborate the testimony of Manetho, in chronological matters at least, that his account may certainly be considered as a near approximation to the truth, in as far as the age of the king in question is concerned. But even admitting the full value of Manetho's authority, certain numerical discrepancies in the various extracts of his history, as preserved in the works of Josephus, Africanus, and Eusebius, still afford scope for controversy. Dr. Young, by a calculation of what appeared to him, on a collation of conflicting numbers, the most reasonable average length of the reigns, from the accession of the eighteenth dynasty to the end of the twenty-sixth which terminated in the Persian conquest, has fixed the date of the accession of Sesostris at 1424 B. C. But on summing up the whole numbers comprised in the collective reigns of all the Egyptian sovereigns, from the commencement of the nineteenth dynasty, of which Sesostris was the chief, to the end of the twenty-sixth, as those reigns are given with certain varieties by different chronologers, each on the authority of Manetho, he thinks that, even making the most ample allowances in favour of antiquity, where the numbers are doubtful from incorrectness of transcribers or corruption of texts, not one of these lists can be made to bring the accession of Sesostris higher than from about 1400 to 1410 B. C.; and this estimate is remarkably confirmed by another document preserved by

Syncellus, called the Old Chronicle, which has every appearance of being of as pure Egyptian original as the lists of Manetho. This chronicle, which also gives the duration of each dynasty, and the numbers of its reigns, but without giving the length of each reign, brings the accession of Sesostris no higher than 1400 B. C. On the joint authority, then, of Manetho, and the Old Egyptian Chronicle, thus so remarkably corroborating each other, we are hardly justified on the fairest computation, in dating that event in round numbers earlier than 1410 or later than 1400 B. C.

M. Champollion, however, fixes the accession of Sesostris in the year 1473 before the Christian era; founding his calculations on the Egyptian cycle, already mentioned, of 1460 years, which coincided with 1461 vague years, each consisting of 365 days. According to Censorinus and Theon of Alexandria, whose work, hitherto unprinted, is preserved in the Royal Library at Paris, one of these periods or cycles terminated in B. C. 1322, and another in the year of our Lord 138. Now, as is supposed, Manetho asserts that, in the 700th year of the former cycle, or 1322+760—2082 B. C. the shepherd kings first obtained possession of Egypt, whose dynasty, after it had lasted 260 years, was succeeded by the 18th Egyptian or native dynasty, which occupied the throne 348 years, according to Eusebius, whose authority in this case is preferred by the French chronologer to that of Africanus. These two sums, 260+348-608, being deducted from 2082, give 1474, as the date at which the 19th dynasty commenced, or, in other words, at which Sesostris, the first king of that dynasty, mounted the throne of the Pharaohs.

But Mr. Mure very justly calls in question the accuracy of the passage in which this narrative is contained, and undertakes to prove that it is quite inconsistent with Manetho's own statements elsewhere, and altogether irreconcileable to the number of years which he assigns to the remaining dynasties. He sets down the results of the various calculations which by various writers have been derived from the work of Manetho, admitting that they differ more considerably than might be expected in extracts taken from the same author, which may arise either from obscurities in his text, or from varieties in the arrangement of the Egyptian records themselves as quoted by him. In fact, it is not improbable that he gave more lists than one, according as he found them in the repositories of the different temples, and that the apparent discrepancies in such writers as Eusebius, Africanus, Syncellus, the author of the Old Chronicle, and Scaliger, may be referred to the several readings which appeared in the manuscript of the Egyptian priest. There is however a general air of re