Adams, Walter M.: The house of the hidden places: a clue to the creed of early Egypt from Egyptian sources (London, 1895)

118 The Mystery of the Heavens. [Ch.

Turning now to the motions of our own
planet we find, as Dr. Brugscli has shown, that
the Egyptian division of the solar, or to speak
more correctly, of the terrestrial year, depended
upon a knowledge of the 3G5J rotations
performed by the earth while completing (ap-
proximately) one revolution, around the sun—
an extra day being intercalated every fourth or
" grand " year. But this method of regarding
the matter arises out of our own slovenly
method of expressing astronomical ideas, and
our habitual employment of language em-
bodying the confused and confusing concep-
tions of the Greeks ; and it by no means does
justice to the Egyptian exactness. The truth
is that a single year or revolution of the earth
is marked by no cosmic or universal corre-
spondence. Only in the fourth or " grand"
year, as it was termed, is a harmony estab-
lished by the simultaneous (or nearly simul-
taneous) completion of the rotary and
revolutionary motions ; while at the same time