Note 26 — Chapter II
Reading edition
Gerbanitæ docebant singulos triginta sex mille annos quadringentos, viginti quinque bina ex singulis animalium speciebus produci, marem scilicet ac feminam ex quibus animalia propagantur, huncque inferiorem incolunt orbem. Absoluta autem cœlestium orbium circulatione, quæ illo annorum conficitur spatio, iterum alia producuntur animalium genera et species, quemadmodum et plantarum aliarumque rerum, et primus destruitur ordo, sicque in infinitum producitur.—Histor. Orient Suppl. per Abrahamum Ecchellensem, Syrum Maronitam, cap. 7. et 8. ad calcem Chronici Orientali. Parisiis, e Typ. Regia. 1685, fol.
I have given the punctuation as in the Paris edition, there being no comma after quinque; but, at the suggestion of M. de Schlegel, I have referred the number twenty-five to the period of years, and not to the number of pairs of each species created at one time, as I had done in the two first editions. Fortis inferred that twenty-five new species only were created at a time; a construction which the passage will not admit. Mém. sur l'Hist. Nat. de l'Italie, vol. i. p. 202.