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THE CALENDAR FOR 1870.

Adjustment of the Colendar,

Julius Cæsar was the first to attempt to adjust the length of the year with any degree of accuracy, and fixed it at 365 days 6 hours; introducing a day every fourth year (called Leap Year), which accordingly consists of 366 days, while the three others have only 365 days each.

From him it was called the Julian Year, and it continued in general use till the year 1582, when Pope Gregory XIII. undertook to rectify the error which then existed between the Julian year of 365 days and the solar year of 365-24222013 days. At that time the difference amounted to ten days; he accordingly commanded the ten days between the 4th and 15th October in that year to be struck out, so that the 5th day was called the 15th. This alteration has been introduced throughout Europe, except in Russia and by the Greck Church, and the year was afterwards called the Gregorian Year, or New Style.

In England the method of reckoning after the New Style was not admitted into the Calendar till the year 1722, when the error amounted to nearly eleven days, which were taken from the month of September, by calling the 3rd of that month the 14th, and it was settled by Act of Parliament (24 Geo. II., 1751), that the years 1800, 1900, 2100, 2200, 2300, and every hundredth year of our Lord, which shall happen in time to come, shall be computed as each consisting of 365 days only, excepting every fourth hundredth year, whereof the year 2000 should be the first.

By the same Act of Parliament the Legal beginning of the year was changed from the 25th of March to the 1st of January, so that the succeeding months of January, February, and March, up to the 24th day, which by the Old Style would have been reckoned part of the year 1762, were accounted as the three first months of 1763, which is the reason we sometimes meet with such a date as: —

March 10th, 1774-75.

That is, according to the Old Style it is 1774, according to the New 1775.

Golden Number...

•

Epact...

Solar Cvcle...

9

Dominical Letter..

3 Julian Period...

28 Roman Indiction..

..B ..13

6583

The Solar Cycle, or Cycle of the Sun, is a period of 28 years, after which all the Dominical letters return in the same order as they did during the 28 years before. The first years of the Christian Era is the tenth of this Cycle.

The Lunar Cycle, or Cycle of the Moon, commonly called the Golden number, and sometimes the Metonic Cycle (from Meton, an Athenian philosopher, who invented it about 432 years before the birth of Christ), is a revolution of 19 years, in which time the conjunctions, oppositions, and other aspects of the Moon are within an hour and a half of being the same as they were on the same days of the months 19 years before. The Prime, or Golden number, is the number of years elapsed in this Cycle. Before the birth of Christ two years of this Cycle had elapsed.

The Roman indiction is a period of 15 years, and used by the Romans for the time of taxing their provinces. Three years of one of these Cycles had elapsed before the birth of Christ.

The Julian period contains 7980 years, and arises from multiplying together 28, 19, and 15 being the Cycles of the Suu, Moon, and Indiction. This was contrived by Joseph Juste Scaliger, in 1583, for Chronological purposes, and is assumed as a fixed Era in calculations by all Astronomers and Chronologers throughout the Christian world. Its beginning is placed 710 years before the usual date of the creation of the world, or 4714 before the commencement the Christian Era.

TIME.

DAYS.

A Solar (average) day is.....

A Sidereal day is...

A Lunar (average) day is............... An average Tidal day is

Ars.

Min. Sec.

24

00 00 0·00

23

66 66

4·09

.24 52 0.00

24 48 0.00

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