CHAPTER I.

"The Yucatecs differed materially from the Mexicans with regard to the time of the solar year, when their year began. Don J. P. Perez informs us, that the first day of the Yucatan year corresponded with the sixteenth day of July; and that this was the day of the transit of the sun by the zenith of a place which he does not mention. But he adds that, for want of proper instruments, the Indians had made a mistake of forty-eight hours. In point of fact, it is in the latitude of about twenty-one degrees and a half that the transit of the sun by the zenith occurs on the 16th of July; and Yucatan lies between the latitudes of about eighteen degrees and a half and twenty-one degrees and a half. To commence the year on the day of the transit of the sun by the zenith, is attended with the great inconvenience, that this commencement must vary from place to place, according to their respective latitudes.