Burlington free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1827-1865, 1844-01-12


matics remarks, it is proof that they are
not fictitious, but that they have been really
observed. Ii is estimated that this number
of eclipscs nigh, under cloudcss sky like
that of Egypt or Chaldea have been ohscrv.
ed in 1900 or 1900 years. Now as those
observations were made previous to the reign
of Alexander, they 60 back Is or 1000 years
B. C,
1t is said moreover that the Egyptians OBJ
served the planets witt, sufficient attention to
perceive that these bodies had sometimes
direct, sometimes retrograde motion, and
that they were sometimes stationary. They
are represented as having had tables Of these
motions. 1t may even be suspected that
they had the notion of plurality of worlds,
which M. dc Fontenele has so ingeniously
revived. Tkey called the moon an ETHEREAL
earth; beside we know that to have been the
opinion entertained by the Pythagorians and
the Philosophers of the Tonic sect, whose
instructors, Py,hagoras and Thales, had de-
rived almost all their knowledge from Egypt.
With regard to the fixed stars, the Egyp-
tians thought that they were fires which by
their kindly or malignant influence controlled
the destinies of mankind. 1t were to be
wished that their astronomical knowledge
had been as carefully preserved as their err
rors and superstlions. Manetho, an Egyp-
tian priest, published six books of astroogi-
cal rcverles, and it is remarkable fact, that
he has produced from the llalowed interior
of the temples, only what does little credit to
his country, willie he consigned to oblivion
those observations to which the priests were
in the habit of referring; but which, no one
has ever seen.
The Egyptians attempted to estimate the
distance of the heavenly bodies, and their de-
Examinations are sufficiently absurd. They
concluded that Saturn was removed only
about l64 leagues from the earth, the sun
1873, and the moon S2-disances SO grossly
inaccurate as not to deserve being mention
ed, were il not that the history of the errors
of the human mind should accompany that
OF its discoveries. Sciences like men have
their periods of infancy. When we behold
the firm step and the rapid progress of the
man, we arc prone to forge! that on leaving
his cradle he with difficulty crept along the
ground, and when we attend to the first de-
vclopments of The human mind, we ought to
regard with some indulgence, its mistakes, its
awkward attempts, and even the false steps
it may make, on commencing "A career IN
which it has acquired so much glory. Ages
accumulate like the materials of an ediGce ;
the last age has no reason TO reproach the
first; the stone which is on tho summit is OF
thc same nature with the stone at the base,
and the latter contributes to the height Of the
former.
But what confers infinite honor on the
Egyptians is their having followed Mercury
and Venus in thatpor,ion oftheir orbits where
they are not visible, and having discovered
their real revolutions: and they are the only
people Of antiquity who appear to have had
the slightest conception Of lhaltruth. Should
il be asked whether they were the real dis
coverers, or whether they had derived the
knowledge from more remote antiquity 8
the problem is one which the silence Of au-
thors furnishes us no means of resolving: no
vestiges of this truth have been found, it is
said, among the oriental nations: indeed a
question has been raised whether it can with
propricly be attributed to the Egyptians, be-
cause Ptolemy says nothing of it in his great
work on Astronomy entitled Almagist, and
because Plato who travelled among them and
who was instructed by their priests, in mem
lioning the order of the planets, places Mer-
curry and Venus at a greater distance from
us than the sun. And yet the discovery OF
the truth alluded to is positively attributable
to the Egyptians by Vilruvius, in his 9th
book by Cicero in his Somnium Scipionis,
and by Macrobius in his commentary on thai
treatise.
Some have been disposed to imagine that
the consultations of the Zodiac were orgi-
naly invented in Egypt at very remote pc
Rod. This opinion has been advocated pr'n.
cipally by Dupius, who conceives that the
consultations in question, had "A reference to
the divisions of the seasons and to the agri-
culture of Egypt at the lime of their nven.
ton. The sign of Cancer marks the retro.
graduation of The sun at the sols,icc Libra
the equality of the nights and days at the
equinox; the CapricGn, a living animal, is
conceived to indicate the sun at its greatest
height or at the summer solstice. This sys.
them presents certainly some curious coinci'
dences. Thus for example, the inundatior
Of the Nile which begins Just after the sum.
mer solstice, would take place while the sur
was in the consultations Aquarius and Pts.
ces and Tirgo, commonly represented as a
woman with an ear of corn in her hand
would coincide with the time of harvest r
Egypt. There is however an insuperablt
objection to the system, which is the exces-
sive antiquity, not less than $4,000 years
which it assigns to the Zodiac. AS this is
historically inadmissibIe, Dupus has modi.
fed his theory, by supposing the names to
have been given, not to the consultations in
which the sun was, but to those Numerically
opposite to him, which consequently were
rising at sun set at the given epoch. Thi,
opinion which brings down the invention Of
those consultations to about $500 years B
c. has been adopted by Lapace and severa
other distinguished philosophers.
The scientific men who accompanied the