of B. C. 13,901. (He has mistaken some of his numbers.) He arbitrarily alters a facta fact which all oriental scholars recognize as such; i. e., puts the winter solstice for the summer solstice, thus making a clear difference of more than twelve thousand nine hundred years, and then declares the result a “rigorous astronomical verification." Was ever audacity, in a professedly scientific writer, surpassed by this?

Take another of his dates," the era of Ma," of which he says, "Very precise astronomical verifications give rigorously B. C. 14,611, the date of the origin of the great cycles of fourteen hundred and seventy-five years, and of the vague year of three hundred and sixty-five days, the invention of the zodiac, &c., the institution of the monarchical regime."

Now, how does he make this out? Why, he takes the highest numbers he can find, that are used in giving the duration of the Egyptian empire from Menes to Alexander, and then extends them somewhat, so that he makes the era of Menes at least one hundred and fifty years earlier than any other writer, and a number of hundreds of years earlier than the numbers necessitate, even if we reckon the thirty dynasties consecutive, and about two thousand years earlier than Lepsius and Bunsen, and more than three thousand years earlier than Poole, and others; i. e., he places Menes, the first mortal king of Egypt, at B. C. 5853. He then, from this, mounts up into antiquity on the mythological numbers furnished by Manetho, as interpreted by Eusebius, and corrected by the Turin Papyrus, according to his fancy; i. e., previous

-

to Menes, he makes the kingdom of the Nekuas usually interpreted Manes, or spirits of dead men (he has another interpretation, which I do not comprehend) of five thousand six hundred and thirteen years, and then the period of Ma, purely mythological, of thirty-one hundred and forty years: this brings us to the epoch, the " commencement of the period of Ma, B. C. 14,606.” This is historical, and the date is verified by astronomy! His process is short and easy. He says Claudius Ptolemy, the great Grecian astronomer, employed, in his tables, a cycle of fourteen hundred and seventy-five years. Then, starting at the year A. D. 139, the end of the Sothic period of fourteen hundred and sixty years, which terminated next after the Christian era, back by periods of fourteen hundred and seventy-five years ten such steps bringing him to B. C. 14,611; and as this date differs only five years from 14,606, to which he had arrived historically, the difference of five years, as he says, being easily accounted for by the loss of fractions of years in the reckoning of Manetho. And this he calls demonstrating the "precision" of the date B. C. 14,611 by astronomy.

- he reckons

In order to put this matter in its true light, it is scarcely necessary to remark, that there is hardly a datum involved which is reliable. Take the historical part. It is true that a Sothic period, according to Censorinus, terminated A. D. 139. But the Sothic cycle was a period of fourteen hundred and sixty

* i. e., fourteen hundred and sixty solar years, and fourteen hundred and sixty-one Egyptian or vague years.

years; and on what authority does the writer make this the starting-point for a reckoning with another cycle of fourteen hundred and seventy-five years, if there be such a cycle? And then, again, what becomes of his reckoning, when it is regarded as demonstrable, that the thirty dynasties of Manetho were not all consecutive that part of them were contemporaneous? by which fact the duration of the Egyptian empire, from Menes to Alexander, is curtailed from two to three thousand years. He had the works of Bunsen, Lepsius, Poole, and Wilkinson, etc., before him, or ought to have had, in which the various versions of Manetho are given; but, as far as I am aware, he has not even hinted that different results had been arrived at by those scholars and others. Whereas, in point of fact, there are equally authentic numbers, both historical and mythological, which, if employed, would have varied that date several hundreds, or even thousands, of years; so that, instead of a coincidence between the historical and astronomical numbers within the limits of five years, there might have been made a discrepancy of some two or three thousand. But the point of his argument all turns on this coincidence within five years.

But the astronomy of Rodier is worse than his history. He says that Claudius Ptolemy made use, in his tables, of a cycle of fourteen hundred and seventy-five years, referring to Syncellus (p. 52) for authority. But his authority does not sustain the assertion. Ptolemy made use of no such cycle; at least, the passage referred to does not prove that he did. But supposing he did, how

does that authorize him (Rodier) to take that number, and by it ascend into antiquity, and verify a date fifteen thousand years before? Even if the number were legitimate or true, it could not be available for such a use. Such an application of it is unscientific and absurd. The absurdity may be well illustrated by a reference to the Julian period. The Julian period is formed by multiplying together the numbers of the solar cycle, lunar cycle, and cycle of indiction, i. e., 28 X 19 X 15. The product of these numbers is 7980. This period began B. C. 4713; i. e., the commencements of these three cycles coincide that year, as is found by reckoning backward from any point of time when the cycles were in use in the Roman empire. Now, supposing any one should attempt to maintain from this that the Roman state was in being, and the particular civil matters connected with the cycle of indiction were in vogue, B. C. 4713, his argument would be parallel to that of our French savant in the premises before us. I ask, in all soberness, is any language of denunciation too severe properly to characterize such a work? If there is in the whole compass of scientific literature a more inconclusive argument, a more irrational or uncritical process, than that of our author in his astronomical verification, as he terms it, of the date B. C. 14,611, it has not come under my notice.

Others of Rodier's dates, of a high antiquity, are open to the same criticism that I have bestowed on the few above mentioned.

D. Page 68.

MANETHO.

THE following is the account of Manetho, as guan sy Syncellus:

"It remains, therefore, to make certain extracts uncaring he dynasties of the Egyptians from the writings of Manettio he Sebennyte, the high priest of the idolatrous temples w Zgar a the time of Ptolemy Philadelphus. These accorting ʼn 1 11 account, he copied from the inscriptions which were moved a the sacred dialect and hieroglyphic characters upon the sumns set up in the Seriadic land by Thoth, the frat Hermes and after the deluge, translated from the sacred dialect, ato me G tongue, in hieroglyphic characters; and committed swag a books, and deposited by Agathodamon, the son of the verand Hermes, the father of Tat, in the penetralla of the temper oế Egypt. He has addressed and explained them to Pt. ate pre the second king Ptolemy, in the book entitled Sochi a fir lows:

"The Epistle of Manetho, the Sebennyte. to Ptolemy Phinis phus. To the great and august king Ptolemy Plastiptum.o Manetho, the high priest and scribe of the sacred adyta bor B by birth a Sebennyte, and citizen of Heliopolis, to his sovereig Ptolemy, greeting:

“It is right for us, most mighty king, to pay due attention to all things which it is your pleasure we should take into consideration. In answer, therefore, to your inquiries concerning the things that shall take place in the world. I shali, according to your commands, lay before you what I have gathered from the sacred books written by Hermes Trismegistus, our forefather. Farewell, my prince and sovereign.’”

* Syncellus, Chron. p. 40.