The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1840-07-07 00:00:00

THE CALENDAR

(From the Saturday Magazine.)
1.. Golden Number
2.. Epact 26
3.. Solar Cycle
4.. Sunday Letters..
5.. Roman Indiction , 13
6.. Number of Direction 29
7.. Julian Period

The terms used at the head of this paper are usually the
Chronological and Common Notes of the Almanac or Calendar.
The Calendar is an adjustment of time, according to rule,
for the use of society. The term " Calendar" is derived from
an old classic word implying to call, from the circumstance
of the Pontifex Maximus, the head of the Roman priests
proclaiming, on the first day of the month, the date of the
appearance of the new moon, and the festivals to be observed
during the month.

In the early stages of society, the progress of time was es-
timated by the courses of the sun and moon ; the former
marking out years, seasons, and days ; and the latter months
and weeks.

But, it has been most difficult to determine with accuracy
the month and the year; since the revolution of neither the
sun nor the moon is completed in an exact number of days.
To reconcile the revolutions of the sun and moon, with the
common account of time, and to make them agree with each
other, was the object held in view upon reforming the Calen-
dar on the following remarkable occasions :
I. I, Julius Caesar being convinced by the Greek astro-
nomer, Soigenes, that the year then employed was too short,
and that it could never be properly settled but by referring
it to the apparent annual revolution of the sun, and finding
that about ninety days had been lost by the old reckoning,
made the first Julian year to consist of 444 days, which was
in consequence called the " year of confusion." This year
was thus made to terminate at the proper season. The fol-
lowing years with the months, were then adjusted nearly as
they are at present, and as the year was from that time made
to consist of 3651 days, a day was inserted every fourth year,
between the 6th and sth of the Calends of March, (which
days answer to the 24th and 25th of February ;) so that the
6th day of the Calends of March being repeated, there were
accounted to be two sixth days of the Calends of March, and
the day thus inserted was named bissextus dies, or the double-
sixth day ; whence we call Leap-year, in which this addition
is made, Bissextile.

11. But as the year does not consist of quite 3651 days, it
was found in the sixteenth century after the birth of Christ,
that the civil year was ten days in advance of the course of
the sun. The Calendar was, therefore, again corrected by
Pope Gregory the Thirteenth, A.D. 1582. This, which is
called the new style, was adopted in England, A.D. l ;52.
The regulations assumed in this second reformation of the
Calendar, are such as reckoning from the 16th century, will
make the civil years and the course of the sun to differ after
the lapse of 4000 years, only to the amount of one day
The notes given at the head of this article were the ele-
ments employed in the correction of the Calendar; and we
proceed briefly to explain :-
1. The Golden number is the number which any given
year holds in the Lunar Cycle, which is a period of nineteen
years, at the lapse of which the new moons take place on the
same days of the same months respectively as at the com-
mencement of the cycle. Therefore, while the sun performs
its annual course nineteen times, those of the moon amount
to 235. The importance of this discovery in the regulation
of time was held to be so great, that the rule for ascertaining
the year in the Lunar Cycle was inscribed in letters of gold
on a tablet set up in the market-place of Athens, in Greece.
Hence the term Golden number. The rule is given in the
Calendar which prefaces the Church service.
2. The Epact is the number of days over and above all
the complete courses of the moon, for any number of years,
in any part of the Lunar Cycle. Hence, it is the moon's
age at the beginning of any year; that is, the number of days
which have elapsed since the new moon in the preceding
year.

CALCUTTA, May s.—The following were loading and engaged to
load at China, 25th March :—For London, the General Kid, Royal
Saxon, Mangalore. Frances Ann, Asia, Eliza Stewart, and Glenelg.
For Clyde, the Tyrer, and for Leith, the Susan