The News-Herald. [volume] (Hillsboro, Highland Co., Ohio) 1886-1973, 1896-02-20
Why It Is.

would not be another leap year until
1904, or something to that effect. As
the other correspondent has not replied,
we venture to offer q word of explana.
ton:
This leap is, to certain extent, pecu.
liar, since another will not occur for
eight years. The last year Of the pres
ent century, 1900, will not be leap year,
but 1000, the last year Of the succeed.
ing century, will. The year 210O will
again be common year, 80 that the
next period of seven consecutive com.
mon years will be between 2O96 and
21O4.
The rule by which this seemingly ar.
bitrary interference with an established
order Of things is regulated is compare.
lively simple, but its history is in many
respects both curious and interesting.
As everyone knows, the earth revolves
round its axis and also travels round the
sun, the one revolution causing the al.
formation of day and night, the other
that of the seasons. From the earliest
times men have made use of both these
series of changes as means of reckon.
ing time, and had there been simple
numericallrelation between them there
need never have been any trouble with
leap years and such devices.
Unfortunately, however, this is not at
present the case. The number of revo.
lutions which the earth makes when it
goes once round the sun, instead of being
whole number, is number and a
fraction; or in other words, the earth
goes round the sun in 1856 days, 5 hours,
48 minutes, 46 seconds, or 1856 5.2422 days.
This was, however, not discovered in a
day. Various guesses were made at the
proper length of the year, and calendars
were drawn up in accordance with them.
But, in the course of time, the error &C.
cummulated, with the result that the
seasons changed places, and the vernal
equinox instead of remaining at a fixed
place in the calendar, moved backward
or forward, according as the approxima.
ton was in excess or defect, and extra
days had to be intercalated or omitted
to set things right.
BY the time Of julius Caesar, the
Roman year, which consisted of 355
days, had worked loose by three months,
80 that the winter months had been
carried back into autumn. In order to
prevent such confusion in future, with
the aid of Sosigenes, he fixed the length
of the year at 1851 days, or three years
of 1856 days followed by one of 1855. At
the same time, to bring back the equi.
nox to its proper place, he intercalated
80 days into the current year of 355
days, making it AS days-probably the
longest year on record. This was the
Julian calendar, and to it we owe to this
day the leap year which comes every
fourth year.
But the approximation on which the
calendar was based, though much more
accurate and convenient than any that
preceded it, gave too long year by the
difference between 356.25 and 365.2422,
the error amounting to a day in 12S
years. In the course of the centuries
the equinox gradually receded toward
the beginning of the year. Caesar had
fixed it on March 25; by the time of the
council of Nice, held in 1926, it fell on
the 2lst of March, and by 1852 it had
receded to March IL. In order to restore
the equinox to the position it occupied
in 1926, when the council of Nice had
drawn up regulations for the fixing OF
Easter, Pope Gregory, in 1882, directed
ten days to be suppressed, and as the
error was found to amount to three days
in 400 years. he laid down that in future
the last year of every century should ba
an ordinary year, unless it is divisable
by 400, in which case it was to be a leap
year. Thus 1900 will,.be an ordinary
year, but 1000 will be leap year.
Pope Gregory's correction gives an
average year of 1865. .2425 days, ,lor twenty.
six seconds longer than the true year.
u
These odd seconds will amount to a
whole year in 3,323 years, and it has
been proposed to allow.for this error by
providing that the year 1000, and all its
multiples, shall be common years. But
this would be pedantic foresight, and it
is unnecessary to discuss the question
whether the year 1000 ought or ought
not to be leap year. In ages yet to
come, when the friction of the tide has
so retarded the rotation of the earth that
1856 days make year, leap years will be
unnecessary. But that is still remoter
contingency, and in the meantime Pope
Gregory's calendar is likely to remain
in its present form.
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COLUMBUS, January a7th, 1906
w. M. HAHN, Superint endent of Insurance
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Insurance Companies other than Life incorporated