Holbrook argus., 1913-01-07

uOW. Llllle IuOTo Iudu twenty C0ulu- ries of the earth's annual celestial tours have been tallied with the year as the unit of time. This innovation is credited to Eratosthenes, mathe- matician and philosopher, who held job as librarian for one of the Ptol- emys at Alexandria about 254 years before Christ Eratosthenes no doubt found delight in devising system by which future ages could eat their meals and go to bed and get up again without having to first run out into the yard to see where the sun or moon or some starry constellation might chance to be.
 We all know that the year is the period in which the sun makes a con- plete circuit of the heavens and re- turns to the point in the zodiac whence it started, but we never stop to question how or why. It is enough for us that calendars and almanacs are thrown our way for the asking, wherein we find each day of the month and of the year carefully num- bered.
 Our years are of the Christian era and extend from January to Decem- Der 31. This era was first used by Dionysius Exigus in A. D. 533. It was more than thousand years before the year was begun on January by | many nations. Before the days of Eratosthenes there seems to have ] been no crying demand for precise plan of counting time. In enc city the reckoning was by succession of kings. in another by a succession of magistrates or priests. Even after the adoption in European countries of the Christian era there were so many methods of dating-national, provin- cial and ecclesiastical-that only con- fusion could result. Mythology long had held higher place than astron- omy.
 Peoples of Egypt and Babylonia are said to have been wiser than those of other nations that figure in the cen turies following them. Stages of those olden times were familiar with the heavens, but the Greeks who followed them could not calculate the advent of their moons in conjunction with the sun. The Hebrews before going down into Egypt and the Arabians before the time of Mohammed calcu lated time only by the moon. They figured 12 lunations or 354 days as the duration of the year. On that basis the New Years day returned to the same season once in 33 years. Moses is said to have obtained all of his chronological knowledge from the Egyptians who learned the length of the tropical year by observing the rising of Sirius, the dogstar.
 Some troubles of the Jews in keep ing their calendar straight are told in the Jewish encyclopedia. In early !, times an extra month was thrown in every two or three years. Calcula
 tions of the relative length of the solar and lunar years were handed down by traditions in the patriarchial
 family. It was possible also to judge
 by the grain harvest. If the month of Nissan arrived and the sun was SC ;; far from the vernal equinox that il
 could not reach it by the 18th of the
 month, the month was not called Nj
 san, but Adar Sheni (second).
 The country people and the inhab
 itants of Babylonia were informed O
 the beginning of the month by frt
 signals, carried from station to sta
 ticn in the mountain country.
 Under the patriarchate of Rabb , Judah l." says the Jewish encyclo
 pedia, "the Samaritans, in order to con fuse the Jews, set fire signals at i'm - proper times and thus caused tn, Jews to fall into error with regart
 to the day of the new moon. Rabb Judah accordingly abolished the fir, signals and employed messengers" The Jewish calendar reckons tn, days from evening to evening in ac ] cordance with the order observed il : the biblical account of the creation
 The Jewish cycle in nineteen year
 exceeds the Gregorian by 2 hours, minutes and 15.3 seconds. This make ! a difference in a hundred cycle T Q,90O years) of days, 21 hours, 4 minutes and seconds. The assume 5 duration of the solar year is 6 mir . utes 39 25-57 seconds in excess of tn
 true astronomical value, which vii , cause the dates of the commencement |, of future Jewish years, that are s
 calculated, to advance from the eau
 ncx a day in error in 216 years. ; All European countries boTr)we - civil calendars from the Romans. Tn l. year began with March and that al
 counts for the present names of tn
 last four months of the year. In tn s reign of Numa two months were adt
 d. January at the beginning and Eel