AMONG features of the Chinese calendar we find:

The connexion of the five planets and the sun and moon in a septenate called the Seven Regulators, with a corresponding septenary week, and in some cases a sabbath marked as inauspicious for doing work.

The Ten Celestial Stems, representing the Father Heaven or masculine principle.

The Twelve Earthly Branches, representing the Mother Earth or feminine principle; also standing for the twelve houses of the zodiac, which are of uneven size, and are denoted by symbolic animals.

The year is lunar, but its commencement is regulated by the sun, the new year falling on the first new moon after the sun enters Aquarius.

These features are supposed to have been "introduced," mostly from Chaldaea; but whether the Chinese got them from the Chaldees or the Chaldees from the Chinamen, the question as to how and by whom they were originated remains the same.

The subject of ancient calendrical systems is extensive, and no speculation can be of much account which has not been prefaced by an examination of the various systems. It would be pertinent, for instance, to see what is known about the calendars which have came down to us from the ancient Central Americans. These evince an accurate knowledge of the periods of the celestial movements, together with knowledge of another kind; for the Mexicans had both a civil and a sacred year. The former was 365 days, with 13 added every 52 years; the latter 260 days, with 13 months of 20 days each, each month divided into 4 weeks of 5 days each.

It is evident that the entire system from which all these various ancient systems of computation were derived was complex and profound, and that it comprised a mathematical knowledge having sound reason at the bottom of it, but whose keys have not yet been discovered. The competency of the computers is shown by their ability to ascertain with exactitude all natural cycles, such as those of the solar year and the eclipses, when such was their purpose; and this relieves them from the imputation that their secret and sacred years were due to ignorance and mal-observation. These cycles were not due to ignorance, but to a knowledge and a purpose which remains to be discovered by research free from both theological and scientific bias.

The septenate of planets is of course a very familiar symbol in ancient lore; the number seven was recognized as the principal key-number in cosmic architecture. The reason why the sun and moon are included among the number of planets is not due to ignorance; and it is evident that such an alleged ignorance is not compatible with the knowledge displayed in other particulars. It was due to the fact that the real septenate of planets was esoteric, an item of arcane knowledge, and that when the septenate was mentioned exoterically, the place of two secret planets had to be supplied, the sun and moon being introduced for this purpose.

The question whether the number of zodiacal signs was originally twelve or ten receives a suggestive hint from the fact that in the above calendar both a denary and a duodenary were used. The ten and the twelve are combined in some of these calendars by taking their least common multiple, 60, and using that number to designate a period of 60 years. Ten and twelve are likewise said to be combined by addition in the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet.

From such gleanings of archaic science as are accessible to us, we may infer that it consisted largely in a marvelous application of fundamental mathematical principles to mensuration and the measurement of time. The computers, so far from being ignorant experimenters, were very brainy people, as we find some of their descendants to be still. The still unexplained existence of the very ancient Âryan HindÛ astronomy of the SÛrya-SiddhÂnta and other works, proves that, when exact calculation of natural cycles was the object, the calculators were fully as competent as ourselves. We must infer, then, that their secret and sacred cycles were based on the like competence and not upon ignorance.

As to mathematics, there are some who think that our great progress in that science may represent merely a partial recovery of what was known before; and that logarithms and the calculus may be but a fraction of what has been known. And there is much yet to be found out as to the relation between numbers and dimensions. It is hardly to be expected, however, that a culture so recent as our own should have reached the point that must have been attained by civilizations of such duration as those of the past.