Let us then, excluding the purely astronomical calculations, closely scrutinise the evidence which tradition affords; for if we can discover tradition of “appearances of rare occurrence, and which are difficult to calculate, such as many of the planetary conjunctions,” they “must,” as Baron Bunsen observes (“Egypt,” iii. p. 389), “either be pure inventions, or contemporary notations of some extraordinary natural phenomena.” Baron Bunsen proceeds to say:—“One instance that may be cited is the traditional observation of a conjunction of five planets (among which the sun and moon are mentioned), on the first day of Litshin, in the time of Tshuen-hiü, the second successor of Hoang-ti. Suppose this should have been the great conjunction of the three upper planets which recurs every 794 years and four months, and to which Kepler first turned his attention in reference to the year of the nativity of Christ. It took place in the following years.

The one which occurred in historical times was in November, seven years B.C.; consequently the conjunctions prior to it occurred in—

Yrs.Mos.Dys.
794412
771012
778660
7794412
715801012
And the conjunction in794412
The time of Tshuen-hiü in2375224

According to the official Chinese tables, as given by Ideler, he reigned from 2513 B.C. to 2436 B.C.; but the dates vary to the extent of more than 200 years, and the year 2375 comes within the limits of these deviations.”

Baron Bunsen, we may then assume, has very skilfully brought back Chinese chronology to within two generations of Hoang-ti (supra). If we could further identify Hoang-ti with Noah, two patriarchal generations would bring us close to the date of the Deluge as fixed by the Septuagint, if we referred them, in the first instance, to the death of Noah.

Before proceeding to this identification, I must point to another chronological fact in Chinese tradition, which would give to this identification an antecedent probability. It was stated (Bunsen, “Egypt,” iii. 383) that Hoang-ti established the astronomical cycle of 60 years in the sixty-first year of his reign.

At p. 387, Bunsen says: "The scientific problem thus offered for our solution is the following—It is admitted that the Chinese, from the earliest times, made use of a sexagesimal cycle for the division of the year = 6 × 60 days (360 days), and they marked the years by a cycle of 60 years, running concurrently with the cycle of days. This cycle, therefore, must have been originally instituted at a time when the first day of the daily cycle coincided with the first year of the annual cycle, i.e. when they commenced on the same day. Ideler thinks it impossible to ascertain this, owing to the irregularity of the old calendar." We may ask, then, what year that could be named would so exactly satisfy these conditions as the sixty-first year of the reign of Noah after the Deluge?[51] Let us, moreover, consider how traditional this cycle of sixty years has been (p. 386),—“Scaliger made the remark that the twelve yearly zodiacal cycle, which is in use among the Tartars (Mongols, Mandshus, Igurians), the inhabitants of Thibet, the Japanese and Siamese dated from the earliest times. Among the Tartaric populations, however, this is a cycle of sixty years (12 × 5); of the Indians we have already spoken.”

It will have already been seen that the cycle of sixty years entered into the Chaldean system—viz. cycle of 60 years = a sossos, 600 years = a saros, 3600 years = a neros.

“Now when we find (Bunsen, p. 387) that six hundred years gives an excess of exactly one lunar month, with far greater accuracy than the Julian year, such a cycle must have been indispensable when that of sixty years was in use, and consequently must have been employed by the Chinese, or, at all events, have been known to those from whom they borrowed the latter. Josephus also calls six hundred years the great year, which may have been observed by the patriarch.”

And at p. 407, in summing up the general chronological result, he says:—