Our Calendar: The Julian calendar and its errors. How corrected by the Gregorian. Rules for finding the dominical letter, and the day of the week of any event from the days of Julius Caesar 46 B.C. to the year of our Lord four thousand; a new and easy method of fixing the date of Easter. Hebrew calendar; showing the correspondence in the date of events recorded in the Bible with our present Gregorian calendar. Illustrated by valuable tables and charts.Packer, George Nichols
History
Our Calendar: The Julian calendar and its errors. How corrected by the Gregorian. Rules for finding the dominical letter, and the day of the week of any event from the days of Julius Caesar 46 B.C. to the year of our Lord four thousand; a new and easy method of fixing the date of Easter. Hebrew calendar; showing the correspondence in the date of events recorded in the Bible with our present Gregorian calendar. Illustrated by valuable tables and charts.
Packer, George Nichols
Calendar; Jewish calendar
Between the 23d and 24th of February, 46 years before Christ, there was
intercalated a month of 23 days according to an established method, but
still the civil year was in advance of the solar year by 67 days; so that
when the Earth in her annual revolutions should arrive to that point of
the ecliptic marked the 22d of October, it would be the 1st day of January
in the Roman year.
Caesar and his astronomers, knowing this fact and fixing on the 1st day of
January, 45 years before Christ and 709 from the foundation of Rome, for
the reformed calendar to take effect, were under the necessity of
intercalating two months, together consisting of 67 days. Now, as the
civil year would end on the 22d of October, true or solar time, it would
be reckoned in the old calendar the 1st day of January; so they let the
old calendar come to a stand while the Earth performs 67 diurnal
revolutions, and thereby restored the concurrence of the solar and the
civil year.
As an illustration, let us suppose that in a certain shop where hangs a
regulator are two clocks to be regulated. Both are set with the regulator
at 8 a. m. to see how they will run for ten consecutive hours. It was
found that when it was 6 p. m., by the first clock, it was 5:50 by the
regulator, the clock having gained one minute every hour.
To rectify this discrepancy we must intercalate 10 minutes by stopping the
clock until it is 6 by the regulator. By this means the coincidence is
restored, and the time lost in the preceding hours is now reckoned in this
last hour, making it to consist of 70 minutes. By this it may be seen how
Caesar reformed the Roman calendar. The Roman year was too short, by reason
of which the calendar was thrown into confusion, being 90 days in advance
of the true time, so that December, January and February took the place in
the seasons of September, October and November, and September, October and
November the place of June, July and August. To make the correction he
must stop the old Roman clock (the calendar) while the Earth performs 90
diurnal revolutions to restore the concurrence of the solar and the civil
year, making the year 46 B. C. to consist of 445 days.
It was also found that when it was 6 p. m., by the regulator, it was only
5:50 by the second clock, it having lost one minute every hour. To rectify
this discrepancy we must suppress 10 minutes, calling it 6 p. m., turning
the hands of the clock to coincide with the regulator, making the last
hour to consist of only 50 minutes, too much time having been reckoned in
the preceding hours. It may be seen by this illustration, how Gregory
corrected the Julian calendar, the Julian year was too long, consequently
behind true or solar time, so that when the correction was made in 1582,
the ten days gained had to be suppressed to restore the coincidence,
making the year to consist of only 355 days.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account