JUNE, the sixth month in the Christian calendar, consisting of thirty
days. Ovid (_Fasti_, vi. 25) makes Juno assert that the name was
expressly given in her honour. Elsewhere (_Fasti_, vi. 87) he gives the
derivation _a junioribus_, as May had been derived from _majores_, which
may be explained as in allusion either to the two months being dedicated
respectively to youth and age in general, or to the seniors and juniors
of the government of Rome, the senate and the _comitia curiata_ in
particular. Others connect the term with the gentile name Junius, or
with the consulate of Junius Brutus. Probably, however, it originally
denoted the month in which crops grow to ripeness. In the old Latin
calendar June was the fourth month, and in the so-called year of Romulus
it is said to have had thirty days; but at the time of the Julian reform
of the calendar its days were only twenty-nine. To these Caesar added
the thirtieth. The Anglo-Saxons called June "the dry month," "midsummer
month," and, in contradistinction to July, "the earlier mild month." The
summer solstice occurs in June. Principal festival days in this month:
11th June, St Barnabas; 24th June, Midsummer Day (Nativity of St John
the Baptist); 29th June, St Peter.
JUNEAU, formerly HARRISBURG, a mining and trading town picturesquely
situated at the mouth of Gold Creek on the continental shore of
Gastineau channel, south-east Alaska, and the capital of Alaska. Pop.
(1900), 1864 (450 Indians); (1910), 1644. It has a United States
custom-house and court-house. The city has fishing, manufacturing and
trading interests, but its prosperity is chiefly due to the gold mines
in the adjacent Silver Bow basin, the source of Gold Creek, and the site
of the great Perseverance mine, and to those on the Treadwell lode on
Douglas Island, 2 m. from Juneau. Placer gold was found at the mouth of
the creek in 1879, and the city was settled in 1880 by two prospectors
named Joseph Juneau and Richard Harris. The district was called Juneau
and the camp Harrisburg by the first settlers; exploring naval officers
named the camp Rockwell, in honour of Commander Charles Henry Rockwell,
U.S.N. (b. 1840). A town meeting then adopted the name of Juneau. The
town was incorporated in 1900. In October 1906 the seat of government of
Alaska was removed from Sitka to Juneau.
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