intercalated to bring the solar and lunar periods into harmony ; nor that the ecliptic was divided into twenty-four, afterwards twenty-eight mansions (sieu) to mark the daily progress of lunar revolution, according to a system well known in later Chinese astronomy, and on the origin of whose main principles in China, India, or Chaldea, there is now such warm discussion among Orientalists. 1 . The nam- ing of certain circumpolar stars, and the determination of the length of the year in days, are less improbable. But the fact that Chinese belief is unanimous in referring these discoveries back to such early periods is at least important as showing a national interest in such phenomena, which might well have resulted in much real knowledge at a very remote epoch. Biot's theory of these claims to early dis- covery on the part of the Chinese is, however, opposed by a stronger probability that they had not arrived at these important scientific data, till about the time of the Han dy- nasty, from the second century before, to the second after, Christ. At this time the native astronomy was recon- structed, partly from tradition and partly from fresh knowl- ledge imported from Greece and India. 2 The famous sixty years' cycle does not occur in early times. 3 The meteoric falls recorded for a thousand years begin in the seventh century, B.C. 4 The mathematical science of the older works is very rude and undeveloped. 5 Four hundred and sixty eclipses are recorded (singularly enough, not one from 2169 B.C. to 776 B.C.) ; but most of them have failed of veri- fication, and the oldest cannot be identified as having been visible in China. The Tcheou-li, a work due largely, it is probable, to these reconstructions, reports of the old Tcheou 1 Biot, Journ. dcs Savants, 1849, 1861 ; Weber, Trans. Berl. Acad., 1860-61 ; Whitney Journ. Am. Or. Soc. vin ; Burgess, Ibid.; Carre, L* Ancien Orient. I. 488; Amyot, Mem. d Miss. II. 104. 2 Burgess, Amer. Or. Soc., 1866, p. 325 ; Chalmers in Leaf's Proleg. to Shu-king. 8 Piath, Bay. Akad. 1867. * Cosmos, I. 118. 8 Tcheoupei trans, by Gaubil, Lettres Edifiantes.
