CHAP. V.
Continuation of the Adventures of the Author and his Comrades, till they came to an Inhabited Country.
Finding our selves fresh and brisk when we wak'd, we resolv'd to shift our Quarters; and, despising this terrestrial Manna which had so enervated us, after laying in a good Stock of the roasted Fowls for our Provision, we bid adieu to the Monuments, and advanc'd farther into the Country. We were then full fifty Leagues from the Sea. We were inclinable to eat the first Night, but tho' we had walk'd a great deal, and pass'd over a Mountain of seven or eight Leagues, we had little or no Appetite; and it was three Days before we could take any thing; which gave us reason to think, that the Bread of the Tree must be extremely nourishing, and that it could not but be good, when taken with Moderation. Mean time, the Way prov'd worse and worse; but, to our Comfort; the Nights were clear, and the Days long, and the farther we advanc'd into the Spring of this Country, and the farther we got from the Line, the more charming we thought the Climate and the Soil; and either the one or the other was generally the Subject of our Conversation.
Du Puis, above all things, seem'd to be charm'd with the Sun, which, from its Rising to its Setting, continually smil'd on us with its agreeable Rays. I do assure you, said he to us one Day, If I had not been born in a Country where the People are so happy as to be instructed in the Knowledge of their Creator, and if I had never heard a Word about the Being of all Beings, the Flambeau of Heaven would, without dispute, be the only Deity that I should think worthy of my Adoration; not only, because of all the visible Objects in the World 'tis the most agreeable, but because without its Influence, no Plant nor Animal can subsist: Every thing languishes the Moment that it departs; whereas its Presence renders Vigour to what before seem'd dying. You are not the only Man, said I, of that Opinion; there are intire Nations that invoke this glorious Planet, as the prime Cause of all things; and even those Ancients who acknowledge a Being of Sovereign Perfection, could not help ascribing certain Epithets to it, which plainly denoted their Esteem for it. Orpheus call'd it the Eye of Heaven. Homer, the Being which sees and hears all things. Heraclitus, the Fountain of Celestial Light. St. Ambrose, the Beauty of Heaven. Philo, the Image of eternal Splendor. Plato, the Soul of the World. King David extols its Excellency to a marvellous Degree, especially in his 18th Psalm; and the holy Men of the Old and New Testament, make no Scruple to represent it to us as the Model of the Divinity, whom they call in a hundred Places, the Day-spring from on high, and the Sun of righteousness.
I laugh, continued La Foret, at what some People have said concerning the Planets. I pray to God, and if I have any Veneration for the Creatures, 'tis only for the Creator's sake, who is marvellous in all his Works; but what surprises me most is to hear of two Motions of the Sun, which are directly opposite to each other, viz. its Daily Motion, from East to West; and its Annual one, from West to East. 'Tis true, reply'd I, these two Motions are directly contrary to one another, if they are ascrib'd to the Sun, which is done by the Ancients universally; but nothing is more natural, if we ascribe these two Motions to the Earth, which makes a great Circle round the Sun in the space of a Year, and turns once upon its own Center or Axis in Twenty-four Hours, just as if you were to push a Bowl, or if you please, a Turnep, from one end of an Alley to the other, which, while it was rolling to the end of the Alley, would make several Turns at the same time upon its own Axis. The Earth does the very same thing; and its two different Motions were always of use to Men to measure the Time of their Duration. The Tour which it makes upon its own Axis, forms our Natural Day of Twenty-four Hours; and the Time it takes in its grand Circle round the Sun, makes our Year of 365 Days and 6 Hours, wanting a few Minutes. 'Tis true, that this Computation or Measure for the Year was not known always alike to all Nations. The Egyptians, the Chaldeans, the Jews, and other ancient People, computed their Years differently, and made them longer or shorter, some than others. Many of them regulated their Years rather by the Course of the Moon, than that of the Earth, as several Nations do even at this Day.
The Calendar now follow'd by the Nations of Europe, came from the ancient Romans, but was not always so exactly regulated as at present; for in the time of Romulus, the Founder of Rome, the Year, which ought to be the Time that the Earth is making its great Tour round the Sun, was computed at only 304 Days, included in 10 Months: March, May, July, October, consisted each of 31 Days, and the others of but 30. Numa Pompilius, his Successor, added 51 to this Number, so that then the Year had 355 Days. Besides, he cut off a Day from every lesser Month, which he added to those 51, and of these he instituted the Months of January, consisting of 29, and February, of 28 Days. In fine, Julius Cæsar, the first of the Roman Emperors, having consulted the most skilful Astronomers of his Time, did, with their Consent, change the Year, which was almost a Lunar Year, into a Solar one by adding 10 more Days to it, which he distributed in such manner, that January, August, and December, had each two, and April, June, September, and November, one. Nevertheless, as all this was not enough, because the Year consists of 365 Days, 6 Hours, wanting about 11 Minutes, the Emperor would have every 4 Years, a Year of 366 Days, which additional Day should be plac'd between the 6th and 7th of the Calends of March, so that there were two 6th Days of the Calends of March, in such a Year, which was therefore call'd Bissextile, because the 6th Day was reckon'd twice before they proceeded to the next.
This Correction, as just as it was thought to be, did nevertheless occasion a Mistake in the Calendar, in process of Time; for tho' the Year was then but about 11 Minutes too long, whereas the Sun, as they said, enter'd in his Time (or 45 Years before the Birth of Jesus Christ) into the Vernal Equinox, the 24th of March, it enter'd into it on the 21st, at the time of the Nicene Council, Anno 327, and on the 11th of March in 1582, in the Reign of Pope Gregory XIII, who observing it, suppress'd 10 Days of that Year, between the 4th and 15th of October, because in that Space there were no Festivals nor Saints Days. And for fear that Posterity should relapse into the same Error, which was a Point of Consequence to the Equinoxes, that in time would have made an entire Revolution thro' all the Months of the Year, by such Retrogradation, he order'd, that for the next three Centuries successively, the Bissextile Year should not be computed at their Expiration, but only at the End of the Fourth, from whence it comes, that there must be 400 Gregorian Years and three Days to equal 400 Julian Years.
I am oblig'd to M. Du Puis, said La Foret, for having started this Subject of Conversation; for I had been a long time desirous to know what was meant by the Bissextile Year, by Old and New Style, and what was the real Cause of all those Alterations. They would not be satisfy'd till I had at several times explain'd to them the Meaning of the Terms Epact, Golden Number, Solar Cycle, Roman Indiction, Ides, Calends, and every thing almost that is necessary to be known for the Composition of an Almanack. What they most wonder'd at was, when I assur'd them that the Sun, which to us seem'd so small, is absolutely bigger than the whole Earth. Really, said La Foret, this is beyond Imagination, and I can't think that all the Stories told us of these things are any better than Dreams. Du Puis, who aggravated every Objection made by his Comrade, presum'd to tell me, that I talk'd very much at random, because I maintain'd the Truth of it; so that I was under a Necessity, tho' sorely against the Grain, to proceed to some Eclaircissements for their Satisfaction.
I confess, said I, that 'tis impossible to determine the exact Dimensions of the Celestial Luminaries; and all that have pretended to it have been presumptuous Impostors. The Instruments we make use of to measure the Parallax of the Sun, are too small, and too ill divided, considering the prodigious Distance of that Planet from the Earth. I never yet saw an Astrolabe divided into Minutes, tho' it were necessary it should be divided into Seconds, and perhaps into smaller Parts, which is impossible, or it would be too large for the Purpose. And as a Proof how liable we are to be mistaken for want of it, the most exact Astronomers, who, not content with the Theory, have gone about to reduce this Query to Practice, have been so grossly deceiv'd, that the wide Difference of one Man's Opinion from another, is enough to bring the Understanding of those Men in question, who would palm their Conjectures upon the World for real Truths. Tycho Brahe, who seems to have made a Circuit round the Heavens, as Christopher Columbus did round the Earth, affirms, that the Sun is 139 times bigger than the Globe which we inhabit. Copernicus makes the Number to be 162; Ptolemy, 166; Father Scheiner, 434; Wendelinus 4096: And one of my Tutors affirm'd it to be three Millions of times bigger than the Earth. Therefore we know nothing positively of its Bigness, but that 'tis much larger than this great Body, how big soever it appears to us, is a Certainty. For in the first Place, supposing it to be of equal Bigness with the Earth, 'tis evident that its Rays in their Passage over the exterior Parts of this Terrestrial Sphere, would leave a Cylinder of Obscurity beyond it, whose Sides would be parallel, so that the Planets, in their way thro' that Opaque, receiving no Light, and having none of their own, would be eclips'd. If the Sun was Smaller than the Earth, its Rays, after having glanced over the Earth, would grow wider, and form a Cone cut off by a Shadow, with its Basis in the Firmament, and the Top on the Part of the Earth opposite to the Sun; the Consequence of which is that a still greater part of the Heavens would be darken'd, and all the Planets there, as was just now observ'd, could give no Light. The only Planet that ever we see eclips'd is the Moon; it appears, therefore, that the Sun must be incomparably bigger than the Earth, because its Rays, when they have pass'd over this great Mass, unite again a little above the Moon, where the Cone, form'd by the Shadow of the Earth, ends in a Point. To illustrate this Explanation, I made a Figure in the Sand.