to work, but by the constant liability to confound one cycle with another, they lead to endless mistakes. Hue says that the Mongols, to get over this difficulty, affix a special name to all the years of each king’s reign, as for instance, “the year Tao-Kouang of the fire-ram;” apparently not seeing that to give the special name and the number of the year of the reign, and call it the 44th year of Tao-Kouang, would answer the same purpose, with one-tenth of the trouble.
Not only are the Mexican and Asiatic systems alike in the singular principle they go upon, but there are resemblances in the signs used that seem too close for chance.3
The other arguments which tend to prove that the Mexicans either came from the Old World or had in some way been brought into connexion with tribes from thence, are principally founded on coincidences in customs and traditions. We must be careful to eliminate from them all such as we can imagine to have originated from the same outward causes at work in both hemispheres, and