Note 39 — NOTE BY THE COMMITTEE OF PUBLICATION.

Proceedings of Am. Antiq. Society, April 24, 1878, page 16, in an article on the Mexican Calendar Stone, by Ph. J. J. Valentini, in which mention was made of this singular kind of notation from the right to the left hand. A. v. Humboldt, in “Vue des Cordilléres,” page 186, remarks: “Le cercle intérieur offre les vingt signes du jour: en se souvenant que Cipactli est le premier et Xochitl le dernier, on voit qu’gu’ici, comme partout ailleurs, les Mexicains ont rangé les hiéroglyphes de droite à gauche.” The great scholar has clothed in the form of a proven statement that which at the beginning of this century was an opinion generally prevalent among Americanists, and which does not bear the test, when the numerous copies existing of the Mexican calendar days are examined. They all show the arrangement of the days from the left to the right. The sculptured calendar is the only exception.