Waterbury evening Democrat., 1892-12-16
THE CALENDARS.
A History of the Evolution of the
 Solar Year.


 From the most casual glance at a planisphere, or celestial globe, one is led to associate the noble and sublime science of astronomy with shepherd life. In the pastures of the newly-cre- ated world the first human beings had very little society, and all they saw from day to day was their fiocls graz ing and frisking about them. There were several signs, however, by means of which, if they were only observant, they could have roughly calculated the flight of time. Thus the departure of the birds in the autumn and the fall of the leaves warned them of the approach of winter. and fixed an epoch recur- ring with periodic regularity; but in their wanderings in search of new pastures, the necessity of an unerring guide became of paramount inn portance, and naturally the heavenly bodies came to be adopted as a great compass of wondrous directing and date-marking machine, fixing the regu- lar periodic flow of time. Thus the heliacal rising of one certain star her aided the advent of the shearing season, while the appearance of the pleiades in the east preluded the Seedtime; and thus two dates of the utmost impor- tance to primitive.a and pastoral people came to be fixed. And as in this sim pie astronomy the shepherds traced the annals of the stars among their flocks and herds, so in like manner they traced the history of their flocks among the stars.
 Thus the course of the sun came to I ,1, f,o1 I. ings. At one time of the year the zo- diacal constellation Taurus, the bull, the lord of the herd, marked where ''thc father of the day" was located. At another time the ram, the master of the fold, served to designate his po- | sitiOn.
 The lion, the terror of herdsmen, was | also placed in the sky, together with | the dre aded scorpion, and besides these | concomitants of the life of a shepherd, he placed likewise above him still dear l CT associations, such as the children of his household, Gemini; the virgin, Vir- go; the ear of corn, Spica Virginis; and his instruments of husbandry, the blow l and the sickle.
 The best possible proof of how far tine stars had entered into the life of man may be found in the worship of the Sabeans of antiquity, who adored the starry hosts as infinite God. But this epoch of mystery evidently pre- ceded the dawn of observation, and the most important period in connection with the subject of time-measuring commenced when men began to turn the celestial sphere into mighty rus tic habitation, modelled on the basis o1 their own immediate surroundings.
 Even the dog, the type of watchful- ness, was translated to the heavens the bright star Sirius, whose heliacal rising in the days of ancient Egypt pre- , saged the overdowing of the Nile, 2 periodic event of the greatest national importance.
 Thus, from the earliest times the heavenly bodies in their seasons have been regarded as grand time-measur CTS; but long before the stars had beer observed for astrological or other pur poses the sun and moon, more intimate ly connected with mans existence, came to be regarded as time-marking ma chimes; and it is on the motions of these two celestial bodies that all calendar! have been based.
 It would be reasonably expected tha the sun, which is the great source anC supporter of life upon the earth, ant the regulator of the seasons, would b' generally adopted as a measure O time, but men were also struck by tn constant and regular return of tn phases of the moon, and from this fac }. | were led to use the moon as the basi for their calendar.
 5 The Mussulman year is purely lunar and consists of the period embraced b, twelve revolutions of the moon aroun' n the earth, or three hundred and fifty = four and one-third days. The Israel ties never adopted the solar year, no even when they lived so long in tn land of Egypt; for we find them, s soon as they were settled in the prom ised land, using the lunar mont and the lunar year. The ancient Jew ish year had only three hundred an
 fiftyfour days; twelve days wer added sometimes at the end C the year, and sometimes a month C thirty days after the month Adar, in ol der to bring it into agreement with th solar year. But the Jewish calends
 received reform in the fourth centur
 after the Christian era, and it is thi
 improved calendar which is used by tll
 Jews of our day for fixing their fe l tivals and religious ceremonies. It