The St. Mary banner. (Franklin, Parish of St. Mary, La.) 1889-1931, 1910-05-07

We annually pass from the last
day of one year to the first of fol-
lowing year. This is a convention of
our calendar for which there might
Just as we'll have been chOsen-and
with excellent reasons-a more
agreeable time to celebrate this rem
ovation. The earth turns around the
sun in one year and one may cut the
circle-or the ellipse-where one
will January / has been adopted
since the year 1868, in consequence
of an edict of the kinglet, Charles
TX, then thirteen years old, and the
French custom determined that OF
the rest of the world. Up to that
time the year had been begun at the
Incarnation, otherwise known as the
visit of the angel Gabriel; that is to
say, nine months before the birth of
Jesus, or March 25, and the Chris
tian years had for their formula lab
Incarnatione Christi
This usage, which was very wide
spread in Europe, lasted until 1745
among the inhabitants of Pisa. The
kings of France sometimes adopted
March Is, sometimes Christmas.
sometimes Easter. Others continued
to follow the Roman method, which
consisted in placing the beginning of
the year on March 1, as in the time
of Julius Caesar. These different
systems Of chronology are often
source of extricable confusion in
reading historians of the middle ages.
Change by Charlemagne.
Charlemagne, wishing to have the
beginning of the year sanctified by
an important festival, fiSed this start
ing point at Christmas, in spite Of its
date of December 25.
Under the Capetian Kings the new
year was transposed to Easter, and
this festival being one of the most
movable, since it is set for the Sun
day which follows the first full moon
after the spring eduinox-that is to
say. after March 81, and may CORE
spond to all the days included be-
tween March % and April 25-the
result is that one meets years having
two months of April almost complete.
Thus, for example, the year 1347 be-
gan on April / and ended on April
20 of the following year, SO that all
the dates between April 1 and April
20 were repeated twice in the same
year, during the first month and dur
ing the thirteenth. Judicial docu-
ments, public and administrative doc
uments, and especially commercial
est harm from these irregularities.
We saw the other day that at the
pole itself, where all the longitudes
terminate to come together, to cross |
and annul each other, there is no |
Sunday nor Monday, no Tuesday nor |
any day of the week, month or year.
rotation of the earth being there |
without effect. There is there neither |
date, the movement of the diurnal |
but only two days a year: seven |
months of light and five months of |
night. In absolute space. outside of |
all movement, there is no longer any |
measurable time.
What is time?
What is time? That is question |
we may ask ourselves on January I.
We think we understand it by |
looking at it particularly in the order
of succession by dividing it into three
past and future.
The past exists no longer, the fu-
ture does not exist. The present |
alone touches us by its actual reality.
What the Present Means.
Well, then, let us examine of what
this present time really consists
If we consider one second-this in
terval, which is nevertheless SO short,
between the two beats of the balance
wheel of clock-we may quite cas-
lily divide it in thought into ten equal
parts, and that is always the custom
in astronomical observations. When
there is occasion to note the passage
of a star behind the spider web
thread of the meridian telescope, or
the precise moment of the occultation
Of star by the moon, or the distance
from west to east between two neigh
boring stars, astronomers mark their
in tenths Of second
Present time, in fact, would be more
correctly represented by the idea of
of second than by the du-
ration of a whole second.
Now let us go little further in
preciseness. Tenths of a second are
quite long intervals, and when there
is question of delicate comparisons,
such for example as the measuring OF
the proper movements of the stars,
they are always determined in tenths
If a second. This amount is the real
unity in astronomy of precision. The
an 9th Of fha rofafion Of thu xlasao& l