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

168 The Mystery of the Depths. [Oh.

twenty-four hour-circles, each divided again into
sixty equal parts or minutes of time; both which
measures, we have already seen, were familiar
to the Egyptians. Moreover the number of
the sun's rotations about his own axis is,
approximately, one hundred and forty-four in
a period of ten years, so that the snake ex-
presses an axial motion common both to the
sun and its satellite : and appears therefore to
be " the chief Urceus, gleaming and guiding
millions of years," of which we read in chapter
xxxiv. On the other hand, in another passage
of the chapter previously mentioned, an extent
of seven cubits gives the length—not of the
.snake's coil but—of his back : and this length
(one hundred and forty-four inches) just gives
the back of the tropical snake, or spiral, that
is, the distance of the sun at solstice from
the Equator, at that epoch about twenty-four
degrees, or one hundred and forty-four decades
of circular minutes. Other examples of a
more complex character might lie adduced ;