obligations to the author. If Mr. Bailly could have afcertained with fufficient evidence, that the era of 3101 is founded, not on retrograde calculations, but on real obfervations, he would have truly affured to the Indians the undoubted palm of the highest known antiquity, fince we certainly have no other well authenticated obfervations which carry us by any means fo high. But I will dare to fay, that this effential point is by no means proved, but, on the contrary, remains as uncertain as before. The queftion is ftill to know, whether these Indians, antient or modern, have not calculated upon their tables backwards, as Mr. Bailly himself has done on these fame tables, from some one known epoch, till they found by them a certain afpect of the heavens deemed fufficiently remarkable and proper to fix as an aftronomical period, which they afterwards applied to their chronology. On this occafion it was to fix the beginning of a new age. I think the probability will be, that fuch has been the means of fixing it. The pretty just precision of these calculations will only serve to determine the value of their tables and methods of calculation. We know that the fame tables which ferve to predict the motions of the heavens for times to come, can alfo equally ascertain them for times paft, however remote. If the present Indians, by a blind application of these rules on those tables, of the principles of which they are now entirely ignorant, are yet capable of predicting, with nearly just precision, the feveral eclipfes and conjunctions of the planets for the future; how much more easily might their ancestors, who had not yet loft the keys of this science, from any fixed date and and well known pofition of the heavenly bodies determine what must have been their respective fituations at any whatever anterior instant of time! Mr. Bailly himself afferts, that the Indians reckon feveral of these astronomical epochs much more recent, to and from which they not unusually calculate; fuch are those of the years 78, 499, (c) 638, 1282, and 1491, fince the Christian era. One of these, or perhaps some one still more antient, may have served as a basis to afcend up to the year 3101 before Chrift. He himself owns that the antient Indians had deduced, from calculation only, another era decidedly fictitious, rifing to 20,400 years before this fourth age, in order to find in it the coincidence of the origin of their moveable zodiac with the equinox, and a conjunction of the fun and moon in this first point. He pretends, indeed, very gratuitously, that the Indians had taken for basis of this long, laborious calculation, the fixed real obfervations. To carry us thus back epoch of 3101 fo many thousand upon years, it surely is of small confequence whence we start; and these calculations will be comparatively little increased, though they should have had a bafis lefs antient by fome hundred years. The idea alone of thus making such long retrograde calculations, fufficiently proves a decided fyftematical aim of feeking fingular afpects of the heavens, in order to make pretended earthly events coincide with them, and to give weight to the abfurd fables of their mythology. The ftrong propenfity of aftronomers, who, like the Indians, are addicted to aftrology, to imagine and look out for extraordinary affinities and influences between the heavens and this earth, are too well known not to fhew us the real drift of all these laborious calculations. Will it not then be Will it not then be very probable that the epoch of 3101 itself has been also fictively established, on account of the uncommon conjunction of all, or of most of the principal planets deduced from the calculation of that particular point of past time? From the example of one avowed aftronomical fiction amongst the Indians, we may furely conclude, that the fixation of that epoch by real obfervations is yet to be proved: on the contrary, it from thence certainly becomes extremely questionable; the more so, as the intent of fixing upon this particular inftant of time, confonant to their aftrological ideas, is very perceptible. Should we allow, though fuch conceffion would be purely gratuitous, that it is not fictitious, but grounded on real observations, it will not affect our prefent purpofe. It exceeds by very little the date of the Samaritan, and falls fhort of the Septuagint chronology; and is very far from establishing a very long or indefinite duration to the present world. Mr. Bailly, it is true, has taken the liberty of adding to this Indian age the 400 years of interval which they talk of, in order to give them fufficient time to learn the principles of this science. We are ignorant what is meant by this interval. If it is really grounded on old traditions, it probably expreffes the duration of the deluge; and thefe 400 years, like those of the preceding age, according to Mr. Bailly, are fo many days, nearly equal to the real time of that great inundation. Our author, in adding them as fo many folar years to the duration of the present age, is refuted by the Indians themselves, who affure us, that this era of 3101 years, the beginning of this age, was immediately preceded by an univerfal deluge. I am no less perfuaded than this aftronomer, that this fublime science, which he fo eminently poffeffed, really dates from very high antiquity. The long life of the antediluvian patriarchs must have given them a taste for the study as well as the means of perfecting themselves in the knowledge of the heavenly motions.. The life of Noah and of his children, already poffeffed of that fcience, was fufficiently long after the deluge to enable them to continue it, and to rectify its tables and methods, if, as I am apt to believe, a change in the position and revolution of the earth required it. This correction, the neceffity of which would be foon perceived, would no doubt demand the ftudy and experience of many years; but when the base is once acquired, we know to what height one fingle happy genius is capable of carrying the most abstract sciences. In the whole course of his work Mr. Bailly is much embarrassed to find a year of 360 days in use, as the measure of time amongst all the nations of high antiquity, ferving as the base of the Indian ages, and a primary calculation every where to be corrected in their computations. This which is neither folar nor lunar, appears, as he thinks, the more fingularly in these, as he pretends that the Indians were well acquainted with the nearly true folar year of more than 365 days before this era of 3101. This adoption of an error ap year, pears pears to him fo extraordinary, that he knows not how to account for it. This faulty year could not, continues he, exist in any nation for civil ufe; it must have then been purely fictitious, and a mere fuppofition of calculation. But why, may he be asked, should enlightened aftronomers imagine and perfift in making use of erroneous data, merely to have the pleasure of correcting them at every instant in their calculations? It is easy to imagine that the odd hours and minutes fhould make a separate calculation convenient; but in the first instance it was furely as easy to calculate from 365 as from 360 whole days. So fingular a custom fo univerfally adopted in early times, must however have been founded in some reason, and furely hides fome mystery. It appears to me, that Mr. Court de Gibelin will furnish a very happy solution of this difficulty. That author, as refpectable as learned, who has thrown fo much light on all parts of antiquity, equally ftruck with this fame fingularity, gives an explication, which in my apprehenfion carries conviction with it. Before the deluge the earth ran through without deviation the 360 degrees of the equator in equal times; and that precife number of days, each of 24 exact hours, made up the true folar year, without any fraction. At the deluge this regular and natural motion was deranged, the course of the earth was diverged from the plan of the folar way, it became oblique, lengthened, variable and almoft incalculable, and afforded no measure without fraction either to the year, the day, or the hour. This dif order was no doubt foon perceived after the deluge; but habit in the |