The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-11-06
Facts About The Calendar
By Frederic J. Hasl<in.

Easter with good coin. Easter came that year upon April 1, but as Eng iand had not then adopted the New style calendar. the English Easter was on 2 March ss and the good Master Lnomas Sharpe won his. bet. Times have outiived their uaefuIness in tnesa sfo years. but as that old mem ofanaum attests. sporting blood iR sporting blood, then, now and afwRya <. The most important q movement touching the calendar now under way is the agitation in Russia for the adoption of the New Style or Greg Old Style or Julian calendar. ana con- sequentiy Is twelve days behind the dates
 The Julian calander takes it's name rom Julius Caesar, the first great calendar reformer. The ancient Rom an year was so imperfect that it was necessary to interpoiate an extraor- 9lnary year of 445 days in order to prins tne verbal equinox back to the aale of March 24. where t had been Tn the reign Of the Roman Ing. Nuna. seven hundred years before Caesar. AZ the same time ten months of the. oio Roman year were increased to twelve; the year was made to consist or sS5 l-4 days. the nearest approach yet made to the length of the true so- lar year; and 1t was arranged to add an extra day once each four wears. That was the beginning of the leap year as we know 1t. Caesar gave the months the number of days still rec koned to them, with the exception that August had but thirty days. and Feb- ruary had twenty-nine in ordinary years and thirty In leap years. July was named for Julius Caesar. and when hia n1ko Emperor under the title of Augustus Caesar, the next month called August Augustus wanted to have just as long month as his great uncle. so he took one day oc February and gave Ii August.
 No change has been made in the order of months since that time. and the only change in the days has been in the added day of leap year. Caesar interpolateJ the intercalary day be- tween February 24 and 25.
 The Romans numbered backwards from three fixed dates in each month. the Calends. the Idles and the Nones The Calends was always the first of the month, so that, in the backward reckoning, February 24 was the sixth calend of March. The extra day was put in after the sixth calend and was called fthe second sixth or the bis sextile" SIay, It was not until two centuries ago that the added day was made February g. is But with all the great peeorn Caesar accomplished, he did not take into &C., count an error of eleven minutes, lO.3s seconds in the length of his civil year, although his astronomers knew Of it at the time. That error amounts to three days in each 400 years. By the time Gregory the Great came to be Pope the error had amounted to thirteen days. There was great agita- ton for a. reform of the calendar, led by the English monk Roger Bacon, who Is credited with the invention of gun powder. The Pope decided to re- form the calendar. rightly thinking that he would by that act make his name stand out In history as one of the most illustrious of the successors of St. Peter. .-'
 So it was in 1882 that the Catholic countries dropped ten days out of the month of October and the new style or Gregorian calendar was adopted It was arranged to correct the error of the Julian calendar by emitting the bi-sextile day from the end-of- the eceSstury years unless 4he date of the year is divisfble by 400. This omits three leap year days in each 400 years and brings the civil calendar so close ly to a correct adjustment with the solar year that additional corrections will not be necessary. in over 4s,0oo years.
 But Pope Gregory did not correct the whole error of thirteen days. He changed only ten days. being influenc- ed to that action by reasons of state. The first quarrel between the eastern and the western church came as early as A. D. IFS about the date of Easter. The Asiatic churches. under the lead of Polycrates, Bishop of Ephesus, a disciple of St. John. celebrated the fourteenth day of the Hebrew month Nissan. The Western church. under the lead of Victor. Bishop of Rome. a day fixed according to the method still in use. The quarrel con ly settled at the famous Council of Nice held in Asia Minor in the year 325.
 That council agreed that Easter should be the first Sunday after the full moon that falls upon or next fol- lowing the Yernal equinox, and that March 21 be accounted the vernal equinox. As the true vernal equinox should have been March 24. the three days error in the Julian calendar was not corrected at Nice Pope Gregory
  Council of Nice. so in correcting the calendar he dropped but ten days of he thirteen in error and made the vernal equinox to fall on March 21. By the time Protestant England adopt ed the Gregorian calendar, which was In l752. the error had increased to eleven days. It Is now twelve days. and if Russia would make It's calendar agree with that In use in the rest of the world, 1t must drop twelve days and have a short year of 353 days The observations of the ancient as- tronomers on the plains of Chaldea, | the wisdom of the ancient Aztecs, the | work of Numa and Caesar and | 3regory-aIl these go to make up the | weIl-nigh perfect calendar of this modern age. And in the United States | there are business men spending t1S.- | poo 900 A year that every household | may have its calendar without money | and without price.
 (Copyright. 1908. by Frederic J. Has kin)
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