The endless sixty-year cycle of years is usually referred back to for a beginning to either 2697 or 2637 B.C.; but, apart from the fact that there is little or no accurate knowledge anterior to 842 B.C., it is of no importance when it began, so long as sixty pairs of equinoxes and solstices are calculated backwards indefinitely. It goes back, in any case, to a date beyond which the memory of Chinese man runneth not to the contrary; it is unbroken and continuous; we are free to take up any date we like at sixty-year intervals, and say "here I agree to begin": we cannot deny that 1908 is the cycle year it purports to be; and even if we did, batches of sixty years backwards from any other cyclic year called 1908, would always have a fixed relation to the other 4604 years recorded; nor, having accepted 1908, can we deny 1808, 1708, and so on, as far back as we like, in order to test how any given event, eclipse or other, coincides relatively with our own date: it is not a question of beginning, but of counting back, and stopping. We find Confucius of Lu (Chou clan state) using the calendar of the Chou dynasty (1122 B.C.-249 B.C.); whose founder had said: "In future we make the eleventh month the beginning of the year instead of the twelfth month." The previous dynasty of Shang (1766-1123) had similarly said: "In future we make the twelfth month begin the year instead of the first." The previous dynasty of Hia (2205-1767) and the individual emperors before had all said (or taken for granted): "The year begins in the first month," from which we may naturally conclude that there could not have been an earlier calendar, as no "sage" could reasonably begin anywhere but at the beginning. At the same time, it must be explained that the astronomical order of the months, counting the first as being that when the sun enters Capricorn, is different from the civil order. Thus the Hia, Shang, and Chou first civil months were the third, second, and first astronomical months, representing the sun's entry into Pisces, _Aquarius_, and _Capricorn_, respectively. When the First August Emperor conquered the whole of China, and proceeded to unify cart-axles, weights and measures, written characters, and many other discrepant popular arrangements, he said: "Let the tenth month be in future the first in the year instead of the eleventh." That is to say, he took as civil first month the twelfth astronomical month, or that in which the sun enters _Sagittarius_. Thus we see that in 2000 years the calendar had got about 90 days out of gear; or, roughly, about an hour a year.