The treatise of Jāḥiẓ, of which a translation is given in the following pages, was published at Leyden in 1903 by Brill. The editor was Van Vloten. But he died before completing the work; it was continued and sent to the press by de Goeje. Since then another edition has appeared at Cairo from the “Maẓba'a al-Taqaddum” by Muḥammad Effendi al-Sāsy al-Maghriby. I have used the Cairene edition for my translation. In the Leyden edition there are two other opuscula (rasā'il) besides the one translated here, namely those entitled “The Boast of Black People over White” and “The forming of Squares and Circles”. In the Cairene edition there are eleven rasā'il in all, including the three of the Leyden edition, the titles of the remainder being as follows:—

The Envious Man and the Object of his Envy.

The Superiority of Speech to Silence.

The Praise of Merchants and the Blame of the Work of Government. Love and Women. Keeping One's Promise.

Exposition of the Practices of the “Faction”. Gradations of the Competent.

Certain passages in the Kauṭilīya Arthaśāstra and the reading of the inscription on the Māṇikiāla stone, published in this Journal for 1914 (p. 641), have invited some attention to the question how time was measured, marked, and told for ordinary use in ancient India; and Dr. Fleet has recently discussed the ancient Indian water-clock fully (p. 213 ante), showing how time was measured and marked by it. This paper continues the subject, dealing with the marking and telling of time for ordinary use. I have to thank him for drawing my attention to the passages in the Arthaśātra, the Jyotiṣaratnamālā, and the Divyāvadāna, and to the notice of the Jain muhūrtas, and for some criticisms and suggestions.

Marsa Maṭruḥ, the classical Parætonium, lies about 150 land-miles west of Alexandria, on the Marmaric coast. During the winter of 1913–14, with the help of my friend W. J. Harding King, Esq., I made a preliminary archæological survey of the locality, and collected a few notes on the modern inhabitants.

In examining the astrological details of the date in Śaka 380 (p. 482 above), I had to work out the bases for tables, and to make parts of the tables themselves, for finding the mean place of the planet Saturn, that is, his mean longitude, according to the first ārya-Siddhānta and the Original and Present Sūrya Siddhāntas. It has seemed useful to complete the tables and publish them, with examples of the use of them, so that they may be available for any future work of the same kind. At the same time, I seek to give them an interest by attaching some general remarks and showing the bases from which they have been made.