The Houma courier. (Houma, La.) 1878-1939, 1900-06-23
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Facts caa.

frot
rs0n observatory g ai
collated some iniele ing
HeeFning The question ofleanf sat
the authority 81 the calendar dias
Tie u~nscientiic reader VIII find eay
to comprehend
In the first place, BE calls afteuiiea
10 the fact that the calender puralg
artificial, conventional and arbitrary
It was the custom Of the pontifs 81
The first day Of the month to eaH out
to the people to announce Judicial
and sacred days, and So from the
Greek word 'lalem Ito call-eame
the word calendar
It is the design of the modern oal-
endar to distribute time into periods
30 as to subserve the purposes 81 50.
eiety. The first requisite Is The estab
lishment Of a convenient and unVary-
ing unit Of time measure. Nature herr
self does not give this standard unit
Of measure. It is purely conventional
and is the gift Of astronomy to the
world. It is the mean solar day, as
distinguished from the apparent solar
day, and from the siderial or star day.
This day commences at midnightand
ends at the following midnight. This
is the civil day recognized in al civ
itzed countries.
Our second unit Of time, expressed
in terms Of the standard unit is the
tropical year. or the interval between
two successive returns Of the true
SUMS center to the vernal equinox, ex-
pressed in mean solar days. This unit
is so nearly invariable that it only di-
minisbes .595 Of a second in 100
years. The latest value determined for
it is 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes,
46,O45 seconds, or 365. 2421996 days.
1t is easy to see that the mean solar
day is not contained in the tropical
year an exact number Of times, but So
ciety cannot take account Of a frac-
ton Of a day to fill out every year,
and this fact, together with the fact
that the units are not commensurate,
constitute the reason for leap years;
365 mean solar days are too small and
366 too long to fill exactly the tropical
year. The problem then is to find a
year Of mean or average length which
shall differ from the tropical year By
a quantity as small as practicable. By
a mathematical process a series oI
! proximate fractions may be found for
the decimal .2421996, each approach
ing nearer to the true value until the
limitisreached. Julius aesarWasthe
first to introduce this system Of In
tercalation, and because Of the fact
that the calendar had fallen into such
error. that the civil year differed from
the true equinox three months, Gaze
sar deereed that after three successive
years of 1855 days the fourth year
should consist Of 366 days. He
changed the beginning Of the year
from the winter solstiee to January
1. He ordained that the odd months
; should have 81 days and the even 80,
i except February, which was to have
20, and in leap year 80. But when
Augustus came to the throne he de-
aired that his month, August, should
have as many days as July, SO one day
was taken from February and given to
August.
Easter Sunday, according to the
council of Nice, must be the Sunday
! following the fourteenth day Of the
t Paschal moon, the moon whose four
teenth day falls on or follows the
21st Of March, the Vernal equinox.
Pope Gregory, in order to reconcile
the church and civil year, ordered ten
$ days to be stricken out Of the calendar
in October, 1882, and he omitted the
INTERPOLATION in centennial years un.
less divided by 400. The annual errol
Of the Gregorian calendar is still 25.9S
; seconds, amounting to a whole day il
: 1928 years.
The Gregorian calendar was mo-
. adopted in England until 1852, tht
. error Of the Julian calendar theI
Q amounting to II days. The act 0.
. parliament decreed that the day fol
u lowing September 2, 1852, should b
counted the 14th Of September, ant
J at the same time the beginning Of tn,
year was changed from March S5 t,
! January 1, thus shortening the yea.
: 1851 nearly three months. In man,
places the populace objected strenu
ously, and riots occurred, in Whicl
they shouted: "Give us back on
fortnightp-St. Louis Globe-D DEMO
q crat.