In 1610, Johann Adam von Schall, another learned Jesuit Father, “was sent out partly in consequence of his knowledge of mathematics and astronomy to China,” and was ultimately “invited to the Imperial Court at Peking, where _he was entrusted with the reformation of the calendar_ and the direction of the public mathematical school.”[98] [98] _Chambers’s Encyclopædia_, 1901. Under these circumstances, when we read that “according to the Chinese work, _Wan-nian-shu_, or ‘Ten thousand-year Calendar,’ in which the elements of the Chinese calendar from 1624 A.D. until 1921 A.D. are calculated by the Astronomical Board at Peking, the earliest date of the Chinese New Year’s Day is January 21st, and the latest February 20th”[99]--when we read this and remember that Johann Adam von Schall was in 1624 in charge of the reformation of the calendar at Peking, we need feel no surprise to find “the elements of the Chinese calendar” calculated in advance for 279 tropical, that is Gregorian, years. Indeed the influence of the European ecclesiastic in these calculations is clearly to be recognized in their very form, for we are easily reminded by it of the “Table to find Easter from the present time to--such and such a year--A.D. inclusive,” prefixed to our English Books of Common Prayer. And we may be tempted to smile when we see the jealously conservative Chinese nation so peaceably--perhaps unwittingly--accepting a reformation of their calendar at the hands of foreigners, and contrast with this acceptance the turbulent opposition with which for so long the introduction of the Gregorian calendar into many European countries was resisted. [99] _On Chronology and the Construction of the Calendar, with special regard to the Chinese Computation of Time compared with the European._ By Dr. K. Fritsche. It may well be that the Jesuit Fathers to whom the Emperor entrusted the reformation of the calendar were themselves not aware of the magnitude of the reformation they were introducing into Chinese methods, for they found the luni-solar festival of the new year, as we may learn from the Chinese literature of that date, occurring close to that _season_ to which they then so scientifically bound it. But, according to the theory which in this Paper I am anxious to advocate, this _season_ midway between solstice and equinox had not been chosen with definite intention as the first of the year by the Chinese, but had only been arrived at, in consequence of an age-long following on their part of a star group, chosen thousands of years earlier, by one of their ancient emperors, as that from which the beginning of their year was to be counted. This star group was the Siou (domicile) Hiu, the eleventh division of their Lunar Zodiac, and it is marked by the stars β Aquarii and α Equulei. (See diagram.)[100]