2,300 solar years = 840,057 days, 1 hour. 28,447 lunar months = 840,056 " 16 hours. difference = 9 " 1,260 solar years = 460,205 " 4 " 15,584 lunar months = 460,204 " 17 " difference = " 11 " If the one number 1,260 stood alone, the fact that it was so close a lunar cycle might easily be ascribed to a mere coincidence. Seven is a sacred number, and the days in the year may be conventionally represented as 360. Half the product of the two might, perhaps, seem to be a natural number to adopt for symbolic purposes. But the number 2,300 stands in quite a different category. It is not suggested by any combination of sacred numbers, and is not veiled under any mystic expression; the number is given as it stands--2,300. But 2,300 solar years is an exact number, not only of lunations, but also of "anomalistic" months. The "anomalistic month" is the time occupied by the moon in travelling from its perigee, that is its point of nearest approach to the earth, round to its perigee again. For the moon's orbit round the earth is not circular, but decidedly elliptical; the moon being 31,000 miles nearer to us at perigee than it is at apogee, its point of greatest distance. But it moves more rapidly when near perigee than when near apogee, so that its motion differs considerably from perfect uniformity. But the period in which the moon travels from her perigee round to perigee again is 27 days, 13 hours, 18 minutes, 37 seconds, and there are in 2,300 solar years almost exactly 30,487 such periods or anomalistic months, which amount to 840,057 days, 2 hours. If we take the mean of these three periods, that is to say 840,057 days, as being the cycle, it brings into harmony the day, the anomalistic month, the ordinary month, and the solar year. It is from this point of view the most perfect cycle known. Dr. H. Grattan Guinness[343:1] has shown what a beautifully simple and accurate calendar could have been constructed on the basis of this period of 2,300 years; thus:-- 2,300 solar years contain 28,447 synodic months, of which 847 are intercalary, or epact months. 2,300 years are 840,057 days: Days. 27,600 {13,800 non-intercalary mths. of 29 d. each = 400,200 {13,800 " " " " 30 " = 414,000 847 {423 intercalary months of 30 days each = 12,690 {424 " " " 31 " " = 13,144 23 days additional for the 23 centuries = 23 ------- 840,057