The venerable Bede, in the 8th century, observed that these phenomena took place three or four days earlier than at the meeting of that council. Roger Bacon, in the 13th century, wrote a treatise on this subject and sent it to the Pope, setting forth the errors of the Julian calendar. The discrepancy at that time amounted to seven or eight days. Thus the errors of the calendar continued to increase until 1582, when the vernal equinox fell on the 11th instead of the 21st of March. Gregory, perceiving that the measure (of reforming the calendar) was likely to confer great eclat on his pontificate, undertook the long desired reformation; and having found the governments of the principal Catholic states ready to adopt his views, he issued a brief in the month of March, 1582, in which he abolished the use of the ancient calendar, and substituted that which has since been received in almost all Christian countries under the name of the Gregorian calendar or New Style. The edict of the Pope took effect in October of that year, causing the 5th to be called the 15th of that month, thus suppressing ten days and making the year 1582 to consist of only 355 days. So we see that the ten days that had been gained by incorrect computation during the past 1257 years, were deducted from 1582, restoring the concurrence of the solar and the civil year, and consequently the vernal equinox to the place it occupied in 325, namely, the 21st of March. The Pope was promptly obeyed in Spain, Portugal, and Italy. The change took place the same year in France, by calling the 10th the 20th of December. Many other Catholic countries made the change the same year, and the Catholic states of Germany the year following; but most of the Protestant countries adhered to the Old Style until after the year 1700. Among the last was Great Britain; she, after having suffered a great deal of inconvenience for nearly two hundred years by using a different date from the most of Europe, at length, by an act of Parliament, fixed on September, 1752, as the time for making the much desired change, which was done by calling the 3d of that month the 14th (as the error now amounted to eleven days), adopting at the same time the Gregorian rule of intercalation. Russia is the only Christian country that still adheres to the Old Style, and by using a different date from the rest of Europe is now twelve days behind the true time. The discrepancy between solar and civil time does not effect the day, for, as has already been shown, the mean length of the day is twenty-four hours, and is marked by one revolution of the earth upon its axis. Nor does it effect the week, for the week is uniformly seven of those days. But it effects the year, the month and the day of the month.