The San Francisco call., 1909-09-19
By Arthur H. Dutton

q HALL we have a new civil cal
endar?
Many people think so; have
thought so for long time. for
the present Gregorian calendar, which
is used by nearly all the world, has its
Inconvenience. It is ragged and un-
symmetrical, and involves us in MANY
difficulties. Should it be revised?
Charles Fisher Of 80 Kearny street
San Francisco, thinks that it should
y I'd. unlike many objectors to existing
o1nditions. has come to the front with
a proposed new calendar. which is al
once ingenious and simple
The calendar has perplexed mankind
for uncounted centuries. The ancients
and practically all savage tribes meas
ured their cycles by phases of the moon
and by the recurrence of the seasons.
but this method is manifestly rough, it
being impracticable to fix dates with
any accuracy by its means. Later the
Romans. before the Christian era. de-
vised q calendar by which the year was
made TO contain 354 days with the in
sertion every second year of a month
Of . DAYS. to make up for the IL days
lost each preceding year, and every
fourth year month of % days, the
extra days being thrown in TO corre-
spond TO our present leap year day.
Then the pagan priests. out of super
stition, decided that the year should
have an odd number of days. so added
one 10 the year. for luck" probably.
and there was soon hopeless jumble-
Then came Julius Caesar. in the first
century. b. c. He appreciated the nec-
essity for rational and reliable cal
endar. and. although quite an astron-
omer himself. Ne called in the aid of
the famous savant Sosigenes. with the
result that between them the two
evolved the Julian calendar, which made
the year 3s5 days long. with day
added every fourth. or leap, year.
This did very well for a while, until
it was found that the sun was gaining
on the calendar, until the latter was
several days behind. Pope Gregory
XIII remedied this in 1882. by skipping
II days. the period the calendar was in
error. and providing for the future by
modifying the Julian calendar so that
leap year should be omitted in every
centurial year whose figures are not
exactly divisibIe by 400. For example.
IT viii be remembered that 1900, which
was the fourth year after the last leap
year, was not a leap year. as 1900 is
not exactly divisible by 400
Pope Gregory's calendar was adopted
by Spain, Portugal, Italy and France in
1882; by the Catholic states of Germany
in 1888: by Scotland in 1900. and by
Great Britain and its colonies in 1852.
Russia alone. of all the civilized ma
tions, still adheres to the Julian cal
enoar. which is now 1s DAYS behind the
cregorian.
The seat Of trouble with the calendar
is the awkward time taken by the earth
TO revolve around the sun Or rather.
TO the lack Of harmony between the
revolutions Of the earth on its axis. the
moon around the earth and the earth
around the sun. If the last were 2
multiple of the second and the second
Of the first all would be lovely and the
calendar would be as simple the
multiplication table
Unfortunately. there is no harmony
between the periods of these movements
Of the heavenly bodies. The moon
makes its circuit around the earth in
27 days hours 1872 minutes, but. ow-
ing TO the moons motion around the
sun in common with the earth. the
actual elapsed time between new moon
and new moon is 2s days IL hours 44-o5
minutes, which is near enough.
The sun is still more annoying The
sidereaI year, or the interval Of an
shsoiute revolution of the earth around
the sun. is ss5 days hours minutes