first patriarchs, and the respect still borne to antiquity, occafioned that, without changing thean tient year, it was endeavoured to fupply its prefent deficiency by adding to the end of twelve months, of thirty days each, which constituted the antediluvian year, five days called Epagomenes; and this is fignified by the Egyptians, who faid that Mercury had won from the moon these five days in favour of Rhea. According to them, Mercury, one of their demi-gods, was the first who proved the neceffity of adding them to the civil year. It was not however long before it was perceived, that this addition was infufficient; and it required the reiterated obfervations of fucceeding aftronomers to come to a nearer approximation, and the exact true year was not definitively determined till about 200 years ago.

The constant primary application of this year of 360 days to the Indian calculations is, I think, a very fingular confirmation of Mr. Court's conjecture. The first calculation ftill conftantly employed is that which was transmitted to them from the antediluvians, and which was the true and only one requifite for them; the second is the neceffary correction to the first after the deluge and the derangement of the earth's motion, and is the refult of obfervations made after that event. That by it they should approach so near to the truth as a few minutes, is a proof of the exactness of this correction. This process, which keeps these two calculations distinct, is certainly the longeft, but very natural to the first authors of aftro

nomy,

nomy, corrected after a change which rendered the first infufficient.

It appears to me to be a ftriking and fingular proof of the great antiquity of the first formula, which could only fuit a different state of things, and no lefs fo of a real change in the revolution of the earth, which had fubfequently taken place, and neceffitated this correction. This diftin&t employ of the antient formula, and of its correction, in the aftronomical calculations of the Indians, becomes a true monument, confirming the opinion I have always had of the inclination of the poles taking place at that event. I had not hoped to find in the astronomical operations of that nation fo direct a teftimony of that great change in the economy of our globe. It is a new obliquity in the axis, and in the courfe of the earth, that this fupplementary formula establishes, the reasons of which Mr. Bailly is fo much at a lofs to find. The near approximation to truth of the Indian year will prove, that that aftronomy which the nation. formerly poffeffed, but of which they now only retain the rules without comprehending the principles, was surprisingly correct, and probably of very antient date; but in no wife demonstrates that they were acquainted with the true year before the pretended era of 3101, being the commencement of the poftdiluvian age. The correction conftantly applied in their computations, not only of hours and minutes but of five whole days, tends on the contrary to fhew a fupplement to anterior knowledge.

From the remarks which I have laid before you, Sir, it will refult that

the aftronomical obfervations of the Chaldeans, extending only to 2233 before Jesus Christ, cannot authorise a very high antiquity of the earth fince the deluge, and that thofe of the Chinese are too vague and uncertain to be admitted. It will appear, in spite of the efforts of Mr. Bailly, that the calculations of the Indians up to their pretended era of 3101 cannot be proved founded on real obfervations; but have on the contrary every appearance of being retrograde deductions upon paper, like others avowedly of the fame nature. Mr. Bailly will however have proved, that the Indians ftill exifting as an unmixed nation, though generally fubjected to foreign domination, have preserved with more integrity the practical rules of aftronomy, which they as well as the other nations of the Eaft had received from their common ancestors. Their mathematical formulæ atteft ftill more irrefragably than the writings of hiftorians the very antient use of a year of 360 precise days; which is no longer ours, but to which all nations were at some certain period obliged to add, in order to bring it to the actual revolution of the earth, five days, and afterwards feveral hours and minutes, according to the more or less exact precifion of their aftronomical obfervations. It appears that the Indians, like all other antient people, had the knowledge of an univerfal deluge, which began the prefent age, preceded by a more happy ftate of man, whofe creation was pofterior to that of other beings of a fuperior order. All these ideas are not particular to them. Bolder than other people, they have attempted to fix with precision the era of this deluge, and of the commencement of

our prefent age; but it is far from fure that they have done it from real obfervations. It is much more probable, that, knowing the date of that event not to be very far diftant, they fought, purfuant to their ideas of the influence of the planets, to determine it to the precise moment when by their tables they had found that an extraordinary conjunction of the fun and moon and most of the principal planets should, according to the rules of aftronomy, have taken place. Their undertaking, by ftill more laborious calculations, to find out a ftill more extraordinary conjunction, in order to determine by it another celestial and terrestrial era, at the immense distance of more than 20,000 years beyond it, adds a further probability to the fictitious fixation of the first. Mr. Bailly is too learned and fagacious to attempt with them to give sanction and credit to the neceffity of these celestial conjunctions to produce a deluge on this earth (the fole point univerfally agreed on), or to effect any other events amongst mankind at that or any other period. Though it fhould be allowed that the real observations of the Indians approach very nearly the time of that great event, and we shall readily agree that fuch obfervations were made very foon after it by the first fathers of that and of every other nation equally sprung from them, this fingular conjunction of the celestial bodies, very important according to them, will only be proper to make us fufpect that they had fixed its precife date rather upon this imaginary connection than upon real truth. We can only from thence conjecture, that this era, without being absolutely exact, is not perhaps very far from the true period to which

tradition

tradition had vaguely fixed that memorable event. As we have before observed, the date the Indians give it will not exceed by many centuries the one I have allowed it, the Samaritan chronology by still fewer, and does not even attain the antiquity bestowed on it by the Septuagint. It will certainly be very far from authorising that prodigious number of ages required by modern philofophers, and which we muft neceffarily admit, to give time for the fuppofed hot and happy climate of the poles to cool by degrees, and, as the experience of more than 2000 years evinces, very imperceptibly, to their present cold temperature. Mr. Bailly has, not only unwarranted by the Indians, but in direct contradiction to them, added 400 years to their era of the deluge, feemingly for no other purpose than to carry that event beyond any version of scriptural chronology. From the few obfervations I have made, I think, Sir, that you will agree with me, that notwithstanding his labours it still remains at least doubtful whether any credit is to be given to the original Indian epoch of 3101 years before Chrift, as founded on real obfervations. Their avowed retrograde calculations, to found on aftrological principles a prior certainly fictitious era, afford the strongest suspicions that this laft has been ascertained in a fimilar manner; and the fingularity of the conjunctions of diverse planets equally incident to it gives additional force to this fufpicion. The very remarkable circumstance in their proceffes of calculating first for 360, and feparately for five more whole days, befides the additional calculations for hours and minutes in their year, certainly fhews that the aftronomical formulæ which

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