Page:Mexico, Aztec, Spanish and Republican, Vol 1.djvu/137

Rh Humboldt, lies in 19° 25' and 57" north latitude and in 101° 25' 80" west longitude from Paris. The two other days 4 Ehecatl, and 4 Atl, do not correspond either in the first year of the cycle or in the year 13 Acatl, with any station of the sun or any other celestial phenomena.

"There are three other hieroglyphics contained within the interior circumference or representation of the sun, which indicate the dates of some celebrated feasts of the Aztecs. The three following indications or hieroglyphics are found immediately below the figure of the sun. The first of these, designated by the letter H, is placed between the parallelograms C and D, and consists of two squares of five oblongs each, indicating the Aztec numeral 10. The symbol of the day is not annexed, but the whole of the central figure is itself the sign Olin Tonatiah, and the hieroglyphic of the day Olin, as delineated on the stone among the other emblems of the days, is on a small scale and abbreviated form of that central and principal figure of the stone. The day designated here, is consequently, 10 Olin. Below this, and on each side respectively of the great vertical ray of the sun, are found the hieroglyphics of the days 1 Quiahuitl, and 2 Ozomatli. Of the last mentioned days,—10 Olin corresponds in the first year of the cycle, with the 22d day of September, new style;—1 Quiahuitl with the 28th of March, and 2 Ozomatli with the 28th of June, as will be seen by the table at the end of this description of the calendar.

"We find, therefore, delineated on this stone all the dates of the principal positions of the sun, and it thus appears that the Aztecs had ascertained with considerable precision the respective days of the two passages of the sun by the zenith of Mexico, of the two equinoxes, and of the summer and winter solstices. They had therefore six different means of ascertaining and verifying the length of the solar year by counting the number of days elapsed till the sun returned to each of these six points,—the two solstices, the two equinoxes, and the two passages by the zenith."