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sections; around winds a serpentine line, commencing with Leo and terminating with Cancer,* and about the whole is a hieroglyphic zone.†

In the centre of the Aztec calendar-stone, is an image of the Sun, resembling the Hindoo Kronos, with teeth displayed and a protruding tongue. Sir Wm. Drummond, in his Memoir on the Egyptian Zodiacs, observes that it was known at a remote period, that the sun is in the centre of the planetary system, with the earth revolving round it; and the circular form of the Mexican planisphere, with the central position of the sun, suggests that the Mexicans were also acquainted with that fact. The Egyptians and Mexicans intercalated five days at the end of the year; their zodiacs originally commenced with the same sign, and the number of Mexican weeks of thirteen days in their great cycle of fifty-two years, is precisely equal to the number of years in the great Sothiac period; the latter coincidence, however, may be accidental.§

Those who have contested the great antiquity of the Chinese and Hindoo astronomical calculations, have been to much labor in proving, that the astronomers of these nations were in the habit of making back calculations, until a period was attained when many of the celestial bodies were in conjunction. This opinion is of no more importance here than as showing, that those ancient people were acquainted with certain great as

* Saulnier's Observations on the Circular Zodiac of Denderah. The Egyptians, in their astronomical representations, says Denon, bind or twine two serpents round a globe. Travels in Egypt, vol. i. 305.

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tronomical periods or cycles, at the expiration of which, the stars, planets, sun, and moon returned to the same places in the heavens. This fact, in conjunction with the prevalent idea of the eternity of matter, probably gave rise to the exaggerated notions of the age of the earth, universal among these nations, and in combination with the tradition of the deluge, induced the belief of the Cataclysms, or that at the end of these great ages, a tremendous convulsion of nature took place. Thus Censorinus says, "But the year which Aristotle calls the greatest, rather than the great, is that in which the sun and moon, and all the planets complete their courses, and return to the same sign from which they originally started together. The winter of this year is the Cataclysm, which we call the deluge, but its summer is the Ecpyrosis, that is, the conflagration of the world for at these alternate seasons, the world is burned and deluged."* The Egyptians preserved "in written records the memory of the event, that since the commencement of the Egyptian race, the stars have completed four revolutions, and the sun has twice set where he now rises." We find Cataclysms in the traditions of the Celts, but in accordance with their system of Triads, there had been only three. The first was a deluge, in which all mankind, save two, were destroyed. The second, a conflagration which was destructive to the greatest part of the human race, and the third was a scorching summer, fatal alike to vegetation, animals, and men.‡ The Mexican and Acolhuan traditions borrowed from the Toltecs, stated

* Censorinus de Natali Die in Cory, p. 323. Seneca Nat. Quæst. cxi. 29.

Pomponius Mela, in Cory's Ancient Fragments, p. 163.
Welsh Archæology, vol. ii. p. 57.

that the world had undergone four periodical revolutions, after which the sun was created for the fifth time. The first age was terminated by a great famine-the second by fire-the third by tempests, and the fourth by a deluge.

The Maya traditions described three ages, the last of which was terminated by an inundation;† at the end of their great cycles they went in religious processions to their sacred places and temples, probably to intercede with the gods against the return of these periodical calamities. The Peruvians appear to have had similar traditions, and they believed that the world would perish at the end of one of the ages; processions and sacrifices, similar to those made by the Mexicans, were customary with the Muyscas at the end, or rather the opening of each great cycle, and they were probably based upon the same superstition. The Brahmins generally taught the same opinion, and four ages, terminated by precisely the same causes, are mentioned in some of the old Hindoo authorities. A tradition of a fifth age, like the Mexican, existed in Thibet.||

It was believed by the Mexicans upon the faith of a tradition, that the destruction of the world would again take place

* Hum. Res., vol. ii. p. 20. Clavigero says the fourth age had not yet terminated-vol. i. p. 289—and he changes the order of the ages. The Siamese also believe in the successive destructions and reproductions of the earth. Crawfurd's Siam, vol. ii. p. 66. † Waldeck, pp. 37, 46.

Lafitau, p. 229.

§ Pike mentions a tradition among some of the western Indians that the world would be destroyed by another deluge at some future period. Expedition, p. 78.

Asiatic Researches, vol. ii. p. 171. Hum. Res., vol. ii. pp. 16,

at the end of a great cycle. The five intercalary days, which ended the last year of the age of fifty-two years, were spent in great mourning, in anticipation of this dreadful catastrophe. Then garments were rent, and all the domestic utensils destroyed as being of no further use, and on the fifth day, the sacred fires were extinguished in all the temples. On the evening of this, the last day, when the Pleiades had crossed the meridian, which was the indication that the dreaded calamity would not occur, the sacred fire was again kindled, and at this signal from the summits of the Teocalli, the land was filled with rejoicings. When, finally, the reappearance of the sun in the morning confirmed their safety, anxiety was at an end and mutual congratulations were exchanged. This remarkable custom finds its counterpart in Egypt. "When the Egyptians saw the sun descend from the Crab towards Capricorn, and the days gradually diminish, they were accustomed to sorrow from the apprehension that the sun was about to abandon them entirely. This epoch corresponded with the festival of Isis; but when the orb began to reappear, and the duration of the days grew longer, they robed themselves in white garments, and crowned themselves with flowers."*

The Goddess of the Syrians, according to Macrobius, was "feigned to lament when the sun, in his annual progress through the twelve signs of the zodiac, enters a part of the lower hemisphere. When the sun arrives in the lower signs, and the days begin to shorten, Venus is represented as lamenting him, as if he were snatched away by death, and detained by Proserpine." Again they pretend that Adonis is restored to Venus when

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* Achilles Tatius. See also Herod. Euter., 142, 4. Bucolics, v. 4.

the sun, having made his way through the six inferior signs, begins to traverse the regions of our upper hemisphere."* Mr. Pritchard, in citing this passage, remarks, that the same customs prevailed in Egypt under different names, and quotes an extract from Plutarch to the effect, that "the common time for the solemnization of these festivals was within that month in which the Pleiades appear."†

The Chinese, Hindoos and other primitive nations had a tradition of a time when the colure of the equinox intersected the constellation of the Pleiades. With the Arabs, their rising with the sun, anciently betokened the return of spring, and their setting, autumn. They rose heliacally in the age of Taurus, and when the sun passed into Aries, they naturally still remained for many years the sign of the vernal season.§ In Greece, their heliacal rising was considered favorable to marriners, and indicated also the seasons to the husbandman.|| According to Censorinus, some of the ancients began "the year

* The Indian Vishnoo slept through the winter months and rose in the spring. The priests of Adonis lamented his annual wound, when the sun, after the autumnal equinox, had descended to the lower hemisphere. Drummond's Origines, vol. ii. p. 414.

Pritchard's Egyptian Mythology, p. 65.
Landseer, pp. 323, 115.

§ "When Atlas-born, the Pleiad stars arise
Before the sun, above the dawning skies,
'Tis time to reap; and when they sink below
The morn-illumined west, 'tis time to sow."
Hesiod. Trans.
Theoc., Idyll xiii. v. 25. Vide Herod., 1. ii. c. 57.
In Cory, p. 328. Pliny, lib. xviii. c. 25.

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