The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1898-01-15
Calendars.

OSAOAANCtIo'
The Roman calendar was introduced
73S B. c., by Romulus. 1t divided the
year into ten months comprising 304 days.
The year of Romulus was of so days
less duration than the lunar year, and of
81 less than the solar year.
The Roman calendar was amended by
Numa Pompilius, 713 B. C. He added
two months.
Julius Caesar, desiring to make it yet
more nearly correct, fixed the solar year
as being 365 days and six hours, 40 B.
c. This calendar, called the Julian, pre-
vailed throughout the Christian world un-
til the time of Pope Gregory Xiii.
The Julian calendar was defective in
that its allotment of 365 days and six
hours was not the true solar year, which
consists of 3G5 days, five hours and Is
minutes, 49 seconds. Consequently, the
difference at the time of Gregory NH
had amounted to ten days, the vernal
equinox then falling on the 11th, instead
Of the 2lst of March. To obviate this
error, Gregory ordained in 1892 that that
year should consist of 355 days, ten days
being dropped from the October of that
year, and that all ordinary years in the
future should contain 800 days. To pre-
vent further inaccuracies, it was decided
that year beginning century should
not be bissextile, with the exception of
that beginning each fourth century. Thus
the years 1900 and 1900 were not bissex-
tile, nor will 1900 be. The year 1000
will be leap year, however. One au
thority attributes the origin of the Gre
gorian style to Aloysius Lilius or Luigi
Lilo Khiredi, a Neapolitan astronomer
and physician.
By the Gregorian system three days are
retrenched every four centuries, the lapse
of eleven minutes and fourteen seconds
making three days in about that period
Thus the calendar year is made to cores
pond with the solar year as nearly as pos
sible In about every 3342 years. or in
3G67 4. D.. counting from the council at
Nice in 325, difference of about one
complete day will occur, thus furnishing
problem which needs no immediate atten-
ton
The Egyptian year had twelve months
of thirty days each, and counted five un-
allotted days at the end
The ecclesiastical calendar, which has
been adopted in nearly all European coun
tries, is luni-solar, being regulated partly
by the lunar year and partly by the
solar This circumstance is the source
of the distinction between the movable and
immovable feasts
The lunar year consists of twelve lunar
months or 354 days.
The solar astronomical year is the period
of time in which the earth performs rev.
olution in its orbit about the sun, and as
already stated is 365 days, 5 hours, 48
minutes, 46 seconds long.
In the early days of Greece the year
was regulated entirely by the moon. So
lon divided the year into twelve months,
consisting alternately of twenty and
thirty days. the latter being styled full |
months and the former deficient
months.
The Hebrew calendar is dated from the
Creation, which is assumed to have taken
place 1850 years and three months before
the opening of the Christian era The
year is luni-solar, and according as it is
ordinary or embolismic, consists of twelve
or thirteen lunar months, each Of which
consists of twenty or thirty days.
L q Al o,11n,,,, 10
354 days, and that of the embolismic 394
days.
The Mahometan calendar, or era of the
Hegira, employed in Turkey, Arabia,
Persia and other smaller countries, is dated
from the flight of Mahomet from Mecca
to Medina, which occurred on the night
of Thursday, July Is, 622 A. D., and it
commenced on the day following. The
years of the Hegira are purely lunar, con-
sist of II lunar months, and commence
with the approximate new moon.
A new calendar was introduced in France
during the days of the Revolution. The
commencement of the year was fixed at
the autumnal equinox, which almost coin
cided with the epoch of the foundation of
the republic. Month names having re-
ference to the state of nature or agricul-
tural labors in different seasons were sub
stituted in lieu of the ancient names. The
idea was abandoned in a few years, how
ever, the system being found both i'm
practicable and inconvenient.
No small amount of uncertainty is now
rife among men as to the exact beginning
of the twentieth century. Considerable
of this perplexity is due to the change
from the Julian to the Gregorian calendars,
or to the erroneous supposition that the
solar day is considerably longer than the
ecclesiastical or civil day.