a broad circle, whose middle is the ecliptic, and its extremes two circles parallel thereto, at such a distance from it as to bound or comprehend the excursions of the sun and planets, (see ASTRONOMY). It is a curious enough fact, that the solar division of the Indian zodiac is the same in substance with that of the Greeks, and yet that it has not been borrowed either from the Greeks or the Arabians. The identity, or at least striking similarity, of the division, is universally known; and M. Montucla has endeavoured to prove, that the Bramins received it from the Arabs. His opinion, we believe, has been very generally admitted; but in the second volume of the Asiatic Researches, the accomplished president Sir William Jones has proved unanswerably, that neither of those nations borrowed that division from the other; that it has been known among the Hindoos from time immemorial; and that it was probably invented by the first progenitors of that race, whom he considers as the most ancient of mankind, before their dispersion. The question is not of importance sufficiently general, treated as we are by the limits prescribed us, for our entering into the dispute; but we think it our duty to mention it, that our astronomical readers, if they think it worth their while, may have recourse to the original writers for further information.