Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of America, During the Year 1799-1804 — Volume 3

Thus we find the general results of comparative hydrography in the astrological monuments, the divisions of time and the religious traditions of nations the most remote from each other in their situation and in their degree of intellectual advancement

These two Mexican signs are Water (Atl) and Cipactli, the sea-monster furnished with a horn. This animal is at once the Antelope-fish of the Hindoos, the Capricorn of our zodiac, the Deucalion of the Greeks, and the Noah (Coxcox) of the Azteks.* (* Coxcox

al cycles, divisions of time, have been gradually transformed into divisions of space; but the generality of the physical phenomena of the risings seems to prove that the zodiac which has been transmitted to us by the Greeks, and which, by the precession of the equinoxes, becomes an historical monument of high antiquity, may have taken birth far from Thebes, and from the sacred valley of the Nile.

In the two zodiacs vulgarly called the Tartar and Chaldean, or Egyptian (in the zodiac which contains the sign of the Rat, an in that which contains those of the Fishes and Aquarius), particular constellations are consecrated to the periodical overflowings of the rivers.

When the waters are high, the river inundates the quays; and it sometimes happens that, even in the town, imprudent persons become the prey of crocodiles.

Angostura, the longitude and latitude of which I have already indicated from astronomical observations, stands at the foot of a hill of amphibolic schist* bare of vegetation. (* Hornblendschiefer.)