Blair Collection > Celtic researches, on the origin, traditions & language, of the ancient Britons

24
grination. The length oV the solar year had then been
kiiowii iiom the days oi' Shem, who survived the eotnmencc-
ment oi'Abraluun s sojourning about 73 years. Had this year
been unknown ; had the Epagones, or even the Bissextile
been omitted, the month of" Green Corn must, during that
pqriod of 430 years, have sometimes fallen in the beginning,
anil sometimes in the depth of whiter.
The Egyptians claim the Epagones, and the aecurate eom-
putation of time, as inventions of their own ancestors. This
claim may be granted, if we take their own account of the
inventor. The first Thoth, amongst other things, calculated
the annual peiiod. We leain from ^Manetho, the celebrated
Egyptian historian, who relates die genuine traditions of liis
nation, that this Thoth lived hcfoix the flood. For he left
his discoveries engraved upon certain columns, in the sacred
Dialed, and in Hieroglifphk Letters (where Ave may observe
by the way tliat hierogh^hics, in any particular dialed,
wtiere' Hieroglyphics representing elementary sounds) and,
after the deluge (another) Thoth (or philosopher) the son of
Agathodemon (Osiris or jMizraim) transcribed these inscrip-
tions into books, and placed them in the sanéhiaries of the
Egyptian temples. Apad En^eh. j-rap. Ev. L. 1. C. 9. What
discoveries do the Egyptians boast of, which were not origi-
nally derived from the Great Thoth ? Those ancestors of the
Egyptians, who so eminently distinguished themselves, were
then antediluvians, and consequently the common parents of
all other nations.
When strangers sjioke of the deluge, the Greeks imme-
diately thought of .Deucalion's flood, which they date in the
I Gth Century before Christ, but which, in faCt, could have
been no other than die flood of Noah.
'i'hoth is said to have left .'-.ri.v:,:) Rolls of hi> discoveries,