which they have inherited and blindly follow without understanding their principles, were originally framed either when 360 days was the true year, or before the additional number of days was found to be neceffary. So perfect however are these formulæ, that it is difficult to fuppofe that their original conftructors could err fo very widely from the truth.

NOTES

NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS

ΤΟ

LETTER III.

(a) Page 262.

CALISTHENES fent to Aristotle a series of astronomical observations made by the Chaldeans, comprehending a space of 1903 years. It is poffible that their numbers and antiquity may have been fomewhat exaggerated; but the Chaldeans were seated very near the first abodes of man, and on the very spot where all mankind had been collected before the difperfion. They were less than any other people expofed to lose the principles of that science, which the long lives of the antediluvians invited them to cultivate, and afforded the means of bringing to perfection by the experience of centuries. At their first establishment the three patriarchs born before the deluge were still living, and men yet extended their existence to more than 400 years. Their climate was propitious, and the tower of Babel, though unfinished, offered them the first convenient obfervatory. According to my ideas, the difperfion of mankind took place in the year 2297 before Christ, and their earliest observations date in about 2233, or nearly about the time when Nimrod, expelling Affur, may be supposed to have taken poffeffion of that country. The Egyptians claimed the exclufive right to firft antiquity and to the invention of all sciences, and thence pretended that the Chaldeans had many ages after derived from them their knowledge in aftronomy. Thefe obfer

vations

vations fhew at leaft the falfity of these affertions. Cham and his defcendants, who travelled fouthward, were probably not ignorant of its principles; but as Egypt, excepting Libya, was the last fettled country of his inheritance, obfervations could not have been made there fo foon as in Chaldea: nor do we find in antiquity any fuch continued feries of obfervations certified amongst them.

(b) Page 262.

Little ftrels can be laid on the antient knowledge of the Chinese in aftronomy, as facts prove that they are yet at this day very little advanced in it. In the beginning of this century the whole tribunal of mathematicians were incapable of calculating an eclipfe with any degree of precision. The then emperor caused their chief to be beheaded, and found it neceffary to recall the jefuits, lately expelled and still refident at Macao, to compile their almanacks; an object of great importance to a nation fo addicted to judicial aftrology. As fince the extinction of that order few learned miffionaries go into China, the present reigning emperor fent orders to Canton in 1778 to ask artists of various kinds, but particularly aftronomers, from all the European nations.

Mr. Playfair observes, that it is recorded in the Chinese annals, that in the reign of Chong-tang the mathematicians Hi and Ho were punished, according to a law of the emperor Yu, for not having predicted an eclipse of the fun, which happened in the year 2159 before Chrift. But though this. eclipfe, which did not exceed one digit at Pekin, is there faid to have alarmed the whole nation, and to have occafioned the death of its principal. mathematicians; yet their fucceffors, uncorrected by this feverity, totally neglected recording any other eclipfe for the space of 1312 years, as the next mentioned dates no higher than 776 years before Chrift. From this we may reafonably infer, that the former pretended obfervations and records. are fpurious. As this obfervation of an eclipfe correfponds with the era of the first olympiad, and nearly with that of Nabonaffar, periods when the fcience of aftronomy was much perfectioned, it is not improbable that

the

the Chinese, receiving new lights from the more weftern parts of Afia, might about the fame time begin to record a more perfect feries of celeftial obfervations. At that time northern China was ftill in a divided state, and its fouthern provinces yet barbarous. 400 years after it all its original records were destroyed; and when again endeavoured to be restored by fucceeding men of learning, it is probable they would have recourse to their neighbours for fuch obfervations as might tend to give order to the scattered remnants of history and science.

(c) Page 267.

Certain it is now from the recent researches made by the authors of the Differtations relating to the antiquities of Afia, that it was in this very year 499 after Chrift, that the date of the prefent Indian age was fixed. In that year their most celebrated aftronomer found by obfervations, that the vernal equinox coincided with the origin of their ecliptic. Imagining, in confequence of their theory, that it must have had the fame pofition 3,600 years before, he thence, according to their aftrological ideas of regulating all fublunary things by the position of the heavens, determined that epoch as the undoubted era of the Caliyuga. From that fuppofition alone it is now fo fixed by the Hindus. Such are the grounds on which Mr. Bailly has thought proper to affert the actual obfervations of the Indians carried so far back as the year 3101 before Chrift: for this purpose he filled a whole quarto volume with retrograde calculations, which he had been at the pains of making, both on the Indian formulæ, and according to the rules of our aftronomy. The almost perfect agreement of their refults fhews indeed the very near approach to truth of the rules and tables of the Hindus, though they are perfectly ignorant of their principles, and even of the figure of the earth. Nearly the fame rules, with the fame ignorance of principles, have been preferved in Tartary and in China. This laborious work of Mr. Bailly fhews with what induftry infidels catch at the flendereft threads to invalidate the authority of fcripture. In order to raise the age of the world fince the deluge, beyond the reach of even the Septuagint version, he

has,

has, in defiance of his own favourite Indian authority, added their interval of 400 years between their third and fourth age to the fum of the prefent age. It should feem, that a fimilar motive has engaged him to prolong the former age by thofe fame 400 years. From the above-mentioned differtations it appears, that the origin of Indian hiftory cannot be carried higher than about 2029 years before Chrift, and that the appearance of Buddha must be at fartheft dated 1027 years before our era.

THOUGHTS