Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1891-03-27

DC interested IN pursuing Lnc SUBJECT Il
little further. Tho "mean" new moon is
the one that is rcckoned by even now,
which may he as much as eleven hours
earlier CT later than the true, the differ
ence being mostly due to the elliptical
form of the lunar orbit. But even
the mean motion is an awkward thing TIC
handle in Il calendar intended to serve
for use through IL long course of cen
turics. Tho well-llnown Meton;c cycle,
corrected by latest computation, gives
$3.50 days IL hours 81 minutes as the
time in which 335 llnations arc PR.
formed This is hour - minutes les
than 10 years of 1854 days each and l
hour 56l4 minutes more than 10 aEera@ re
Grcgoran years, the latter count drop.
ping out three leap years in every four
centuries. The latter small difference
amounts to che complete lunation in
about 1000 years at the present rate.
The error really accumulates a little less
rapidly than that because of the change
in the rate OF the moons motion. Her
synodic lunation is now performed in
about nine-four.cenths of IL second OF
time less than $500 years ago
A study of the rule will show that
Easter Day may occur as early as March
% and as late as April 25. These are
the limits, and the later one has served
as the basis of an absurd prophecy
which has been attributed to Nostra
damus. 1t tells Gn Frcnch) that when
ST. George shall cruelty the Lord, etc. ,
that is, when April % falls on Good Fri
day, "the end of the world shall have
come" But that very coincidence befcl'
in 1888. six or seven years ago, and SOW
eral other times ntermediately, while
"thc end is not yet" The last line of
the prophecy reads, dc fin du monde
arrivera," which is transla ed as above.
But the last word except one is often
pronounced as if written with Ct" in
which case the sound is identical with
that of an old word signifying tota! OF
count. 1T is easy from this to guess
that the meaning OF the speaker was
then when Easter falls on April 25 tho
end of the count is reached, and the
series for computing Easter begins over
again. 1t is probable that many another
oracular utterancc which has come down
ment of an error could be explained in
an equally simple way if we only knew
enough to be able to trace out the origin
of the misconccption.
1t will be observed that the Jewish
was an awkward affair. Its
all began With the day following
the new moon. AS twelve lunatipns are
performed in eleven days less than a
year it became necessary to introduce an
month (Ne-Adar. or secon,
Adar) at least once in three years, SC
that the years were of lengths much
more irregular than ours, which only
differ by a single day. Not many people
are aware that this extra day was not
known as Feb. 90 until the accession of
Charles H., nearly 230 years ago. Pre-
vious to that time the 23d of February
had been counted double in leap years
Il fact which caused at one time sore
discussion on the point whether the
Feast OF ST. Matthias ought to be cele.
brated on the cath or the 25th of that
month. Happily for the world, it does
uot now trouble itself badly about these
little matters.
They are small, indeed, in the present
day, but they still dominate our time
reckonings. The changes in the calen-
dar that have been made from and in
Gliding that by the Council of Nice were
adopted simply with reference to what
was hoped would prove more satisfac-
tory placing of the movable festivals
OF the church, Easter being the key to
all the rest. Outside of that arrange
ment, the Importance of which grows
less and less with each succeeding cent
ury, there is no good reason for pre-
ferring the Gregorlan to the Julian cal
endar. Indeed, the latter is so much
superior to the other for purposes of as
Economical calculation that it has been
seriously proposed to readopt it, making
1900 a leap year, and refusing to drop
out centurial leap years for ali time TO
come.