The Placer herald., 1856-06-21
The Old and the New STYLE.


Sosigenes, very much improved the mode of
reconing time, when they established the Ju-
Illus calendar, and made every fourth year to
consist Of 366 days. They considered a trop-
ical or solar year to consist of 3654 DAYS; and
hence the additional day every bissextile wear
four quarter days being equal to whole one
But they rather overdid the natter for, even
during the reign Of Augustus Caesar, cor
rection of three days was found requisite.
Instead of being 1864 days, or 365 days 6
hours in length, the precise data show that Il
solar year, contains just 365 days 5 hours 4S
minutes 47.S seconds. This makes differ
ence of minutes 1912 seconds between the
Julian year and the actual year. This differ
ence amounts to 55 hours min. 1922 sec,
or trife over day, in 13l years. Thus it
was perceived as early as the year l4l4 that
the vernal and and autumnal equnoxes were
really leaving March 81 and September 81.
These were their supposed dates i'll the third
and fourth centuries*
After the question had been agitated for
nearly two centuries, and it was ascertaincd
that, since the council of Nice, A. ID. 325, to
the year 1892, the equinoxes occurred ten
did at the session of that council, another
individual was in Rome who had courage
and public spirit enough to assume the re
sponsibility of changing and rcctitying the
calculations of Caesar. Pope Gregory MIL
made the calendar leap ahead ten days, by
calling the day next following October 4th,
the J. 5th of October, 1882. He went one
step further. TO prevent recurrence of the
error, he ordered that only such centuries as
could be divided by four without remainder
should be deemed bissextilcs, viz: the
10th, Goth, oath, 2Sth, and so on
which is equiveant to abating three
days from every four hundred years We
have seen above that l3l years produce one
days difference; and 1913 years Of course
amount to three days difference. This, it
will be observed, still leaves a small balance
undisposed of, and this trihe will, III the lapse
Of many centuries, amount to few days,
about three DAYS or less in 100 centuries
Now as years are to be divided by four, and
centuries are to be divided by the same mum
Der, and without remainder, too to desig-
nate the bssextile years, if we divide the
millennia or periods of thousands of years
likewise by this number, and select those that
leave no remainder by the division, the calcn-
dar would be corrected still more accurately.
hundred thousand years, or which is the
same thing, hundred miIIenia, would pro-
duce but the difference Of one day.
The pope's recommendation was embraced
at once by Catholics generally; but Protest
ants did not so readily acquiesce in the decree
They retained the old Julian system till
1899. In 1900 the German Protestant imi-
tated the papal sponsor of leap year, and
made the calendar leap ten days ahead III
February, so that March | Immediately fol-
lowed Feb IS. This mode was not adopted
by Great Britain till January, 1852. In
September of that year she also made the
calendar leap ahead to equalize the current
of time. The third day Of that month was
called the fourteenth Thus slowly was the
new style adopted Even now the Russians
adhere to the Julian method, or old STYLE
They are thereby about twelve days behind
our date now.
Hence we learn that julius Caesar author
ised the bissextilc, which proved to be slight
" inaccurate; that Gregory corrected the in
accuracy in great measure, and amended
the leap year. We also learn why, every
fourth year. every fourth century, and every
fourth millennium, divisible by four without
remainder is to have one day added to its
length. And we further learn how it hap
pened that February is increased at those pc
riods. And now since military general in
troduced the Macedono- Grecian calendar (foI
this preceded the Latin,) since an emperor
established the Roman mode or style, and
since pope decreed the adoption of the
Christian or new style, why may we not ven
ture to hope that president may contribute
his part in recommending another improve
ment in our reckoning by rectifying the con
dition of the Christian era, and calling the
next year A. D. 1861, as it will in reality be-
instead Of A. d. 1857? Such improvement
would be the American style or area, as well
as the Christian, and would soon be intro
duced throughout Christendom. Bothinpe-