The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1923-12-28
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BY JOHN DICKINSON SHERMAN
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anu important year. II
z fact, it looks as If almost
anything may happen-excepting al
ways the usual and expected.
But the fame of 1924 is secure, even
If nothing out of the ordinary does
happen. 1t will go down to history as
the first year Since 1882 in which prac.
Ideally all Of the civilized world kept
the same time
In short, 1924 sees abandonment OF
the Julian calendar by the Eastern
Orthodox Christians and their adop.
ton of the Gregorian calendar. This
means that the whole civilized world,
with the exception of about eight mil
lion Uniates, is marching in step be-
hind old Father Time with his hour
glass and scythe.
How long this synchronism, coinci-
dence, simultaneousness, concurrence,
isochronism. or whatever you prefer to
call 1t, may last nobody can tell.
There are half a dozen movements un-
der way to tinker further with the
Gregorian calendar. Some one of
them is likely to produce an improved
calendar. Then part of the world will
adopt the improved calendar and the
rest Of the world will straggle along
behind as usual.
Yes; 1924 takes quite fall out of
Catus Julius Caesar, though it has taken
nearly two thousand years to bring it
about. 1t was just about two thou
%ho%
vidi, vici," "Et tn Brute" and "Omnia
Gallia" became seriously annoyed over
the fact that the calendar of imperial
Rome and her worldwide dominions
was just ninety days ahead Of the sun.
Joshua commanded the sun to stand
STILL and 1t obeyed him, but Caesar
was altogether too clever to think he
could make 1t hustle. So he simply
gave out the word for the world to
use the same date for ninety days and
let the sun catch up. Which the
world did and the sun did. Then
Caesar, to keep the sun right on its
job, proclaimed leap year and Febru-
airy 20 every once in four years.
The old Roman calendar which
Caesar doctored up had 1856 DAYS and
was supposed to have besn established
by Romulus, the legendary founder and
first king of Rome And Caesar made
the mistake Of not doing the job him.
self. Instead, he turned 1t over to
Sosigenes Of Alexandria, a Greek as
tronomer and mathematician. And
Sosigenes slightly bungled the Job, for
the sun and his calendar didn't exactly
jibe, and by 1882 the sun was ten DAYS
ahead.
1t was in that year that Ugo Buon-
compagno, known to fame as Pope
Gregory XIII, took the Julian caIen-
dar in hand for another doctoring.
And Pope Gregory did not do the lob
himself, either. He set to work Luigi
Lilo Ghiraldi, an astronomer and phy-
stefan of Naples. He got sun and cal
endar working together, or nearly so.
He died and another mathematician
one Claws. worked out the necessary
calculations for the verification. The
calculations were published in 1903 in
a volume of 800 pages, authorized bv
Pope Gregory. And that is the Gre
gorian calendar in use today.
The Gregorian calendar, however.
WIS not adopted by all the world all
at once. October became October
10 in Spain, Portugal. and France.
The Roman Catholic states of Ger
many adopted IT the next year, but in
other German states and the Scandi-
navian countries 1t was not accepted