animals. Four of the twelve are the same as the Aztec. Three others are as nearly the same as the different species of animals in the two hemispheres would allow. The remaining five refer to no creature then found in Anahuac.44 The resemblance went as far as it could.45 The similarity of these conventional symbols among the several nations of the East can hardly fail to carry conviction of a common origin for the system as regards them. Why should not a similar conclusion be applied to the Aztec calendar, which, although relating to days instead of years, was, like the Asiatic, equally appropriated to chronological uses and to those of divination?46
I shall pass over the further resemblance to the Persians, shown in the adjustment of time by a similar system of intercalation;47 and to the Egyptians, in the celebration of the remarkable festival of the winter solstice;48 since, although sufficiently curious, the coincidences might be accidental, and add little to the weight of evidence offered by an agreement in combinations of so complex and artificial a character as those before stated.
Amid these intellectual analogies, one would expect to meet with that of language, the vehicle of intellectual communication, which usually exhibits