New Britain herald., 1928-02-29
aonths would be heightened to in-

crease some office holders tenure.
 Leap Year Appears
 Tn 46 B. C.. Julius Caesar, with the help of astronomers, gave the calendar it's greatest reform up tc that time, by the creation of lear year and leap year day. He gave
 31 days to each of six of the months and 30 days to the alternate months except February, which ordinarily received 29. This gave year of 365 days. He figured that there were 6
 hours left. and that by adding an extra day--which we have come to know as leap year day-he would keep the days exactly in accord with the year.
 '"This approximation of Caesars was the closest ever made up to that time; but the six hours which he took as the excess was just II min- u,es and 14.49 seconds too much to fit the facts. The year, which there- tofore had been figured too short became for the first time too long
 1 should and so Tapped over a bit into territory that should have been re- cognized as that of the new year. Astronomical events therefore, like the winter solstice, marked suppos- edIy by Christmas. fell on earlier and earlier dates. The latter was separated more and more from Christmas Day. Similarly New Years Day moved farther into winter and toward spring.
 By 1882 the accumulated error amounted to 1 4daya. But it was only ten days in error from the sit uation at the time of the meeting of the church council of Nice in S25 A. D. So when Pope Gregory turned the calendar back in 1852 he turned it not to the position in Caesars time but 10 that in 325 A. D. As a result Christmas still falls four days after the winter solstice instead of at the same time, as it should.
 After correcting the calendar, Pope Gregory made change in the leap year arrangements so that the calendar would not again creep ahead approximately II IA minutes q year. He arranged to have three leap year days omitted every 400 years. This was a much more nearly accurate calendar than that of Cae- sar, but still there is a slight dis crepancy amounting to nearly three hours in 400 years or slightly more than A minutes per century. In about 3,261 years after the Gregor- ian correction the calendar, in spite of the usual inserted and omitted leap years, will be ill error by one day, so that an extra leap year day will have to be omitted. It is prob able. therefore. that the year 4S44, although supposedly a leap year. will have only 2S days in its Feb ruary-if February and the present calendar survive that long.
 'The English expression. leap year is rather an indirect one. It refers to the fact that after Feb ruary 29th given date leaps over an extra day. Thus March l, 1926 fell on Monday and March ]. 1927 on Tuesday: but March ], 1928 will Heap over to Thursday. In the lan- guages derived from the Latin, and in scientific circles in English. leap year is known by a variant of the old Roman derived term. 'bisseXtile year, The extra day inserted by Julius Caesar was placed between the c4th and the 25th of March, the latter known as seXto calendas. The extra day was therefore known as calendas. One of the most expressions for leap year occurs in Swedish-'Skottar.' It means literally, 'sprout' or shoot year. and carries the idea that an extra day has sprouted on the year as a green shoot springs from a tree trunk"