Omaha daily bee., 1900-01-09
4 -nRnrpEn-nAN YEAR.
No Person Living Now VIII see An
other Like IL.

St Louis Republic.
whether or not it is due to the fact that
women miss the privilege Of usurping male
prorogatives which come to them with leap
year, it is certain that much anxious in
quiry has arisen as to why the year 1900,
although It is the fourth year, is not a leap
year. 1t is not. that is certain. February,
1900, has only twcnty-eight days.
1t is fortunate that in this way attention
is sometimes directed toward the calendar,
as perfect a little device as any which man
has ever fitted himself into the unaccom-
modating phenomena OF the solar system.
The year 1900 is a "dropped-day year
No person living now will ever see another.
The year POO is the next "dropped-day
year" The trouble comes about in this
way:
One day OF twenty-four hours is the time
required for the earth to make one rotation
on its axis, producing the change Of day
and night.
One lunar month is the time required for
the moon to revolve once around the earth.
One year is the time required for the
earth to ~revolve once around the sun, pro-
ducing the changes OF the seasons.
For these different periods of time there
is no CONNIE devisor," that is, the day Is
not contained an even number OF times in
the month or the month an even number Of
times in the year. For instance, the month
contains exactly 29,53O5SS4 days, and the
year contains exactly 800 days, 8 hours,
1915 minutes. That makes all the trouble.
The Mohammedans, in making up their
calendar, disregarded the year entirely and
base their reckoning On the month. Under
this plan the Mohammedans have the blithe-
some spring sometimes in January and
sometimes in August.
Christians disregard the month entirely,
using an arbitrary division which they call
a month, which has no connection with the
month, and use the year as the basis of
their calendar. This makes the seasons
always fall at the same time.
Now, the true year contains 365 days, .
hours, 4SA minutes, The odd number can
not well be formed directly into a calendar
year, which must contain only complete days.
Pope Gregory KILL, who in 1882 improved
the calendar invented by the astronomers Of
julius Caesar, made a rule, which has
adopted by all countries except Russia. that
1.-THE closing year of each century, 1000, 100,
etc. instead Of being always a leap year, as
in the Julian calendar, should be a leap
year only when divisable by 400"
Therefore the year 1900 is not a leap year.
The plan produces close coincidence be-
tween the calendar year and the suns year.
You can figure it out. The suns year is
365 days, 5 hours. 4S% minutes long. The
ordinary calendar year is 365 days long.
The leap year is 366 days long. The average
year is 1854 days long. In this way the
calendar gains on the sun liz minutes each
year. In 100 years the gain is l ,125 minutes
or 1S% hours, almost a day. Dropping the
leap-year day, therefore, once every 100
years balances up the 1917 hours and leaves
the sun 5A hours ahead of the calendar.
In 400 years the sun will be almost a full
day -four times 5h hours) ahead of the
calendar. Making every 4OOth year a leap
year brings about almost absolute coin
cidence.