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THE EVOLUTION OF ERAS.
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there are 360 degrees in a circle, an equality as to the year possibly arose. Longer than the Chinese, but shorter than the Egyptian year, it follows that neither of these nations had copied their styles from this famous empire. The empire had formerly no importance in chronology, for it belonged to that period of the sciences which was held as being empirical. Besides, many dates could not be checked with the eras of other nations. For the reasons already given, it was, therefore, all the more gratifying to historians to find that Rawlinson had rescured a whole series of dates from oblivion; and that by means of recondite calculations in regard to a solar eclipse in the eight century B.C. But particulars of this discovery will be more conveniently given in chapter xii., under 'Kindred Sciences.'

13. In Phoenician chronology,[1] 'the Phoenician records, no longer extant, gave to their kingdom an antiquity of 30,000 years. Sanchoniathon, who, it is said, lived about roo years before the Trojan War, has left a chronological table (found in Eusebius)[2] of the antedeluvian, and a few of the post-deluvian, heads of the generations of man.' It only remains for me to add that nothing more romantic or more mythical could be conceived than the contents of these tables. They are simply fables in excelsis.

14. 'The Hindoo Maba Yuga,' the same authority points out, 'consisted of four lesser yugas or ages, corresponding to the Golden, Silver, Brazen, and Iron Ages of the Greeks. In the first age (Satya Yuga) all mankind was virtuous; in

  1. Encycl. Metrop, vide chronology.
  2. He lived between 264 A.D. and 340 A.D.