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NOVEMBER 1810.

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DECEMBER 1810.

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ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATIONS FOR APRIL.

W
E are able to trace the origin of the calendar from Romu-
lus, the founder of Rome; but it has undergone various re-
formations since his time, of which it will be the business of
this article to give a brief account.-Romulus distributed
time into several periods, for the use of those under his com-
mand: he observed, with as much accuracy as the knowledge
of the times would admit, the recurrence of the seasons, and
divided the year into ten months, making the first in the
spring and on the first of March. He suspected that the
Sun run its course in 304 days, and the months of this legis-
lator were not at first equally divided; some of them consist-
ed of only twenty days, and some had thirty-five, or perhaps
forty days; but afterwards he made four of his months to
consist of thirty-one days, and the other six of thirty days,
making 304 days.

The calendar of Romulus was reformed by Numa, who made it consist of 355 days, and transferred the beginning of the year from March to January, reckoning March the second month, April the third, and placing February, which even then consisted of only 28 days, at the end of the calendar. The year thus arranged remained undisturbed, till the year 452 before Christ, when the Decemvirs changed the order of the months, reckoning them in the same manner that they are now found in the almanack, viz. January, February, March, April, &c.

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As the real length of the year had not yet been ascertained, great disorders were occasioned in its constitution, which Julius Cæsar, with the advice and consent of Sosigenes, a celebrated mathematician, undertook to rectify about the year B. C. 46. He found that the months had considerably receded from the seasons, to which they had been adjusted by Numa, and that the dispensation of time in the calendar, could never be properly settled, without having a regard to the annual course of the Sun. To bring forward the months to their proper places, he took an account of the days which had been lost by the former mode of reckoning, and formed a year of 15 months, or 445 days, which on account of its quantity and design, has been called the year of confusion. This year being ended, the Julian year commenced on the first of January, B. C. 46. From this time, the civil year and months, were regulated by the course of the Sun. As the philosopher found the annual course of the Sun to consist of 365 days 6 hours, he made his year to consist of 365 days, for three years successively, and every fourth year of 366 days, in order to comprehend the odd six hours. For this purpose he ordained, that an intercalary day, should be added every fourth year to the 23d of February; that is the 24th day, or the 6th, of the calends of March, which was to be reckoned twice, and hence this year was denominated Bissextile. It is likewise called Leap Year, from the year leaping over a day more of time in that year, than in a common year. Hence the Julian Calendar, so called from Julius Cæsar, is disposed into periods of four years each, of which the first three are called common, and consist of 365 days, and the fourth bissextile, having 366 days.

The Julian year was still imperfect; for as the time in which the sun apparently performs his annual revolution, that is the time in which the earth actually makes his journey round that luminary is 365 days, 5 hours, 45 min. and 48 sec, the civil year of 365 days 6 hours, must have exceeded the solar year by 11 minutes 12 seconds, which in the space of

130 years amounted to a whole day. The imperfections of the Julian Calendar were not observed for several hundred years, and it was not until the year 1582, that the next reformation was effected; the error accumulated by this means, amounted to about ten days of that time, so that the vernal equinox, which had been fixed by Sosigenes, in the time of Julius Cæsar, on the 25th of March, was at the time of the Council of Nice, held in the year 325, fixed on the 21st of March, and in the year 1582, it was found to happen on the 11th. This constant anticipation of the equinox, became a matter of serious complaint in the 15th century; and in 1474 Pope Sextus IV. being convinced of the necessity of a reformation, sent for Regiomontanus, a celebrated mathematician, and presented him with the archbishopric of Ratisbon, in order to engage him in the undertaking. But a premature death preventing him from the accomplishment of his design, the project was suspended for a whole century. It was now that pope Gregory XIII. had the honour of executing, what several preceding pontiffs and councils had attempted before in vain. He invited to Rome a considerable number of mathematicians and astronomers, employed ten years in the examination of their several formule, and finally gave the preference to the plan proposed, by Aloisius and Antonius Lilius, two brothers of Verona. He transmitted copies of this plan in 1577, to all the catholic states, and the learned academies at that time existing. A council of the most erudite prelates was convened by the pope, and the subject being finally settled, a brief was published in the month of March A. D. 1582, by which the use of the old calendar was entirely abrogated in all countries, over which his holiness had any sway, and the new one instituted in its stead, called from his name the Gregorian Calendar.

The principle adopted was, that the few days which had been gained by the old account should be taken from the month of October, of the year then current, and the equinox

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