CALI-YOUG A FICTITIOUS ERA.

613

13th century, we find tables of tangents calculated by the Arabs, we need not wonder if they should be found in the Sourya-Siddhanta, whose date is now known to be no more ancient. The Professor is astonished at seeing versed sines among the Indians ; but his memory has betrayed him, when he asserts, that the Arabs did not know them. He acknowledges that the Indians have not actually demonstrated either of the two processes which they point out for these calculations. I would be

tempted to believe that they were ignorant of these demonstrations; if they had known the principle, their table would have been probably a little better. Mr. Playfair has not calculated it anew; he has not even had the discernment to perceive the error of the divisor 225, substituted, probably by an error of the copy, for the true divisor 235.5!"

Mr. Davis deduces from his elaborate examination of the Indian astronomical writings, that the Cali-youg, like the Julian period of Europe, has been compounded by a retrograde calculation. It is a principle admitted almost universally among the Indian astronomers, to assume an epoch, at which all the planets were in conjunction, in the first point of Aries. They then proceed as if this general conjunction had really been observed, and they determine the mean movements, which will give for the time of the writer, the position of the planets, such as he has been able to assign. Having thus fixed the epochs, they next travel back so far into antiquity, that the errors of the ancient epocha may vanish, when divided by the number of intervening years. Hence the mean movements employed, differ from the movements known to them, only by absolutely insensible quantities. Let there be assumed for the epoch a date 648000 years distant. Without embarrassing ourselves with the real position of the planets at that instant (a point impossible to determine), we may make all the longitudes = 0, or we may suppose a general conjunction in the beginning of Aries.

The greatest error that can possibly be committed will be a semi

180° 648000

circle, or 180° one way or another; but = 1"; thus by taking such a fictitious range, the greatest possible error becomes

evanescent.

This idea of the Hindoo system, given by Mr. Bentley, says M. Delambre, is so natural, that I am astonished it did not occur to M. Bailly, and make the pen fall from his hand. It occurred to myself on the first perusal of M. Bailly's book, before the publication of the first volume of the Asiatic Researches, and it made such an impression on my mind, that I could never place the least reliance on the pretended proofs that he adduced, nor would I have ever seriously entered into the discussion, could I have avoided it in this history of astronomy.

Would a European astronomer in examining our Tables which go back to the epoch of 800 years before the Christian era, conclude that they were really established on observations made 2628 years ago? Such, however, is the error into which Bailly and his Scottish partisan have fallen. Astronomical calculations concur with historical documents to prove that the age of the SouryaSiddhanta coincides with the year 1060 of the Christian era. Hence Varaha who composed that Hindoo treatise, wrote subsequently to the Arab, and long after the Greek astronomers.

"The Edinburgh Review warmly espoused the dogmas of Bailly and Playfair, and a writer in its first number affirmed that it was not proved that Varaha-Mira, was Varaha the author of the SouryaSiddhanta.

"In the 8th volume of the Asiatic Researches," adds M. Delambre, "Mr. Bentley establishes his first assertion on proofs too long to admit of analysis here. We may affirm, however, that the objections of the critic had little foundation, and that the mean between all the results possesses every probability, that can be desired in these

CONCLUDING REFLECTIONS.

615

matters. Moreover, Mr. Bentley confirms his proposition by a number of new calculations which we deem it needless to transcribe." Histoire de L'Astronomie Ancienne, I. 494.

The Hindoos transposed their history, to their fictitious system of astronomical epochs. This transfer occasioned a thousand palpable absurdities; to disguise which, they were obliged to remould their pouranas, to introduce fictions, and prophecies which might correspond with the end they had in view; but these very artifices more clearly display the folly of the enterprise. This system of antiquity, though fitted in many respects to flatter the national vanity, excited numerous reclamations, which continued as long as the memory of the ancient order was preserved. The necessity was then perceived of causing all its vestiges to disappear. There is, indeed, a current tradition that the Mahrattas (Maharastras) destroyed all the works of the ancient astronomers that could be found. 66 Finally, it appears that there does not exist at present a single Hindoo book, which can possess an antiquity higher than 1300 years, if it makes the slightest mention of these enormous periods; and that none of the romances called pouranas date farther back from the present time than 604 years, while some of them are more modern still!"

The opinion therefore entertained by the Hindoos about their antiquity, is founded principally on vanity, ignorance, and credulity. "Their great geographical treatises are merely a tissue of the most incredible absurdities, of which we shall say nothing else here, out of regard to the honour of the Hindoos. One of them is of the 5th, and the other of the 10th century of our era. Ibid. p. 500.

وو

In concluding my survey of the primeval world, while I readily acknowledge that many of my views are but partially developed, or faintly shadowed forth, and that some of them may want confirmation, yet I trust that the accordances brought out between scientific induction, and sacred history, are neither fanciful, nor overstrained. Well aware of the morbid

resilience of the human mind against arguments of this nature too closely pressed on its acceptance, I have omitted to notice in the progress of my inquiries, several analogies on which it would have been not undelightful to expatiate. Such as belong to the deluge the reader will spontaneously recognise, on comparing the graphic description of Moses, with my delineation, directly drawn from physical principles. For a popular narrative what language could be happier than the following: “The same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened!" The atmospheric calm, also, which prevailed during the consummation of the catastrophe, the resulting tranquillity of the circumfluent waters, and the majestic buoyancy of the Ark, are well indicated in the record. "The waters increased, and bare up the ark, and it was lift up above the earth. And the waters prevailed, and were increased greatly upon the earth; and the ark went upon the face of the waters."—Genesis, chap. vii. And long before the diluvial deflux acquired its destructive velocity, we are informed that the proto-ship was quietly grounded on the summit of a mountain.

I now dismiss these lucubrations, humbly hoping that they may promote the study of a new, but magnificent field of knowledge, and a far greater good than all physical science can bestow, one which the finest philosophical spirit of the age, justly declares he would prefer to every other blessing, as most delightful and most useful to hima firm religious belief.*

* Sir H. Davy, in Salmonia, p.136.

EXPLANATION OF THE PLATES.

PLATES I. II. III. IV. and V., representing the fossil shells of the successive mineral strata, require no explanation, as the generic and specific names, according to Mr. Sowerby's nomenclature, are annexed to each shell. The mineral conchology of this eminent naturalist is a work of great merit, which every practical geologist should have in his hands, as it will enable him to discriminate with accuracy the several secondary and tertiary formations from one another. The ammonites

occur in all the formations, up to the chalk inclusively, in which they abound. The figure on the margin is a section of an ammonite, to show the course of the siphuncle, or channel of communication between each

successive cell in the spiral. It is believed that the membranes of the molluscous animal in the living state enveloped this shell, as the sepia and nautilus do theirs. See p. 236 at top.

Plate VI. is a lithographic representation of the petrified stem and leaves of a plant akin to the cactus cylindricus of Martius. See p. 449.

The fossil was found in the neighbourhood of Swinridgemuir in Ayrshire, in a stratum of very hard coal-sandstone. The whole freestone bed is thickly interspersed with these stems, having the leaves No. 4 attached to them. In the blocks cut out by the quarriers, the leaves are seen radiating, as it were, from the stems in all directions, to a length of from 18 to fully 24 inches. The stems are frequently enclosed in a thin case of stone, resembling the bark of a tree, with a surface like that of the interior organic form, through which case, the leaves pass, being there attenuated.