his rays with those of the ascending Sun, and both beaming with benevolence on the horoscope of the commencing cycle-numerous victims would smoke on the altars of the thrice-honoured rising Ram. THE reader perceives that I think it very likely that at a time comme morated in Æthiopia, in Egypt, and in Lybia, in this impressive manner; by sacred observances, and by the erection of temples calculated to outlast these immense cycles of planetary revolutions-Jupiter was rising from the cusp of the horizon-that is, was in the sign Aries, having just passed his ascending node; and that the Sun was also rising there: so that the Sun, Jupiter, and the bright star Arietis, were seen together, or the Sun within half an hour of the two latter, at the dawning of the day of the vernal equinox. It would be very interesting if we could come at the epocha of this great astronomical event; and it would increase that interest if we could discover that the Moon also was in conjunction with the above. But this is too much for me to venture to hope for; and I must frankly confess, that the statements I am about to make can be little better than hypothetical, since I am too deficient in astronomical knowledge for it to be much otherwise. He therefore who pleases may skip or fly from this line of notice and confession, till he arrives at the printer's next line of demarkation. But I feel something like an obligation to hazard at least the semblance of particulars, in order to help the less informed, as well as the better informed, of my readers, to a thorough conception of that general principle which it seems necessary they should know, and which the latter will of themselves know how to follow up. I The periodical revolutions of the planet Jupiter, may not inaptly be compared to those of the hour-index, or hand, of a clock or watch; the former moving through the twelve signs of the zodiac, in one of his revolutions, as the latter does through the twelve signs (or hours) of the dial-plate, in one of his; the year of Jupiter being the day of the dial plate. The minute-hand meanwhile-which may be compared to the Sun (more properly indeed to the revolving Earth-which in the present case comes to the same thing, the Sun's rising and setting being known to be only a mode of speech) performs this round in a single hour, or one of his years. Hence it will be clear that the Sun must come in conjunction -that is to say, must overtake Jupiter somewhere in the circuit, once in every revolution, as the hour-hand does the minute-hand. But here the parity ends, owing, I suppose, to the different inclinations of the planes of the orbits of the Earth and Jupiter; or rather, to our not looking at the system of the universe in the abstract, as we do at the dial-plate; and to our calling by the term conjunction, only those positions of the Sun and Jupiter where they form a right line with our own visual rays as we stand on our own planet. There would else, I apprehend, be further concordance with the clock, which brings its two hands in conjunction, once in every cycle of twelve hours, namely at noon. An astronomical friend has computed for me, that Jupiter must make 152 revolutions, and the Sun or Earth 1,803-which of course would take up the latter number of our years, in order to accomplish a conjunction of these planets in the given sign, Aries-I mean so exact a conjunction as for the planets to meet again apparently at the same star, or degree* of the ecliptic. Now, according to the "Prophetic Almanack", which I believe far transcends all other publications of the kind that have yet issued from the European press; and which of course may be relied on for facts of the kind which I am about to state-the Sun entered the sign Aries, I have here to record a mistaken computation which has unfortunately found its way into the latter part of my fifth Essay, in discoursing of a Babylonian figure of Jupiter. The friend who made it must have been under the influence of his unlucky stars at the time, as he probably never made such a mistake before. Himself afterward discovered it, which has prevented me from repeating it here. It respects the period of time between one conjunction of the planets Sol and Jupiter, and another, which in my 150th page is stated to be 1,080 years, whereas it should have been as here stated, 1,803. Of course this contravenes my former computation of the age of the Babylonian cylinder; and carries it back either to 21 B. C. or to a very obscure period of Babylonian history, between the reigns of Aralius and Bel-Ochus, 1824 years before the Christian era. March 20th, 1821, at ten at night nearly; and he came in conjunction there with Jupiter on the 27th of that month, at 15' past seven. They must therefore, if I mistake not, have been near-perhaps on the very meridian of the Alpha of Aries (the bright and distinguished star Arietis) and within an hour and a half (a very trifle in long computations) of the time of Sun-rise. The Sun's longitude being 6°, 30', he must have been near Arietis at the time; and the rest of the reckoning would have been easy, if modern Astronomy had not tormented itself with the fiction. of the fixed stars having moved; which I freely acknowledge threatens to throw me out here, and disables me from putting any other than (as I said) an hypothetical case. In a gross manner, I conceive that I might put the case as follows. The Solstitial Sun is 2,160 years in passing from 6o, 30′ of one sign of the zodiac, to the same number of degrees in the next; therefore 2,160 years before A. D. 1821, the Sun and Jupiter were in 6°, 30 of the Aries of the real zodiac, on the 20th of March-or say at the vernal equinox: now 2,160 years before 1821, was 339 B. C. which added to the cycle or period of 1,803 years, brings us to 2,142 B. C. for the era of their former conjunction at the same place. It will probably here be remembered that in a former part of this essay, in calculating the general period of the erection of the Ethiopian temples to Jupiter Ammon, I arrived at a result of 1,418 B. C. But in that case, an allowance was made of the distance between Arietis and the meridian of the Musca-borealis, which is 9°, for the emergement of Arietis and Jupiter from the Solar rays. If the same allowance be made here, 72 × 9 = 648, which subtracted from 2,142, leaves 1,494. In the above calculation I should probably have allowed the usual 10° or more for emergement, but the bright triangle of Musca seduced me to place the Sun at that mark. Had 10° been allowed, my computations would have met within four units, which is a singular felicity of coincidence for calculations which refer to remote astronomical periods; for 72 × 10 = 720, which subtracted from 2,142, leaves 1,422. |