Indications in Mesopotamian and Indian literature have seemed to me to point to the above conclusions. The opposed view, held by most writers on the subject, is that only at the late date (about the beginning of our era) when the stars of Aries in conjunction, and the star of Spica in opposition, marked the _equinoctial_ season, were they adopted as marks for the beginning of the year by Babylonians and Hindus respectively. I think that the position held by the star Spica in Chinese ancient astronomical tradition may be claimed as telling strongly in favour of an originally _solstitial_ as opposed to an originally _equinoctial_ beginning of the sidereal years of the Accadian, Hindu, and Chinese nations, for never has the claim been made that the _Chinese_ years were counted from the vernal equinox; but on the contrary the opinion has been very generally held and expressed by Chinese scholars that at some remote date the new year’s festival was held in China at the season of the winter solstice. Gustav Schlegel, one of the latest writers on the subject of Chinese astronomy, though he admits that, “selon l’opinion générale l’année chinoise commence toujours avec le solstice d’hiver,” has put forward a view entirely opposed to this generally held opinion: according to his theory, the Chinese have from the most remote times counted their years, as they count them at present--_i.e._, from the new moon nearest to _the season mid-way between the winter solstice and the spring equinox_: and as he is convinced--as we have seen--that the beginning of the Chinese year was originally marked by the asterism Kio, he demands as the lowest possible date for this origin of the Chinese calendar, that of 16,916 B.C., when the constellation Kio marked, by its heliacal rising, the mid-season between solstice and equinox. Schlegel brings forward many learned and ingenious arguments drawn from Chinese literature to support this theory. It would be impossible at second hand, and in a small space, to state fairly his arguments with a view to rebutting them. His volumes are full of valuable information concerning the “Uranographie Chinoise,” but it has not seemed to me when reading and re-reading his work, that the grounds on which he relies are sufficiently established to support the high claims to antiquity which he puts forward for the origin of the modern Chinese method of counting the year from the mid-season between solstice and equinox.