Note 37 — NOTE BY THE COMMITTEE OF PUBLICATION.

A specimen of such an instrument with a surface inscribed as the cut shows would hardly have been preserved. We think that the box enclosed a round disk turning on a pivot; this contrivance, evidently served as an aid to the memory in enumerating the alternating Ahaues. To-day, we should obtain the same result by writing the Ahaues in a horizontal or vertical line, but the Nahuatls and Mayas, having solely a symbolical or pictorial manner of representation, made use of this ingenious arrangement by painting the series of the Ahaues on the circumference of a circle. Thus the idea of an uninterrupted sequence of time and the connection of the 2d Ahau with the 13th were brought to notice.