Democratic Sentinel, Volume 6, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 December 1882 — CONCERNING CALENDARS. [ARTICLE]

CONCERNING CALENDARS.

A definition of the word calendar is given as a method of numbering and a-ranging days. weeks, months and years; also as a meehauicffl coutriv ance for registering that arra igment. Various nations and seats have adopted different methods of meas uring time, dating from some real or imaginary epoch io their existance. The following are the principal cal endars aud snow the place that the year 1883 will occupy in the world’s history: Anno mundi (year of the world), 5 883. Anno Domini (year of our Lord). 1,883. Jewish year, 5,643. Julian period, 6,595. Hegira, or flight of Mahomet, 1,298. A. U. O. foundati >n ot Rome, 2,635. Independence ot the United States, 106 7. Reign of Queen Victoria, 45 6. Science fixed the year 1883, A. D,. as the 5,883 d year since the creation of the world; the Julian period places it as the 6,595 th. For all practical purposes ths one answers as well as the other.

The Jewish year is bused upon the calculation that the world was urea ted 3760 years before Christ was born, which ad u ed to those since the birth of Christ, give 5,613 as tue Jewish year of the world. The Jewish year is supposed to,have varied at different periods in length, consisting of twelve or thirteen month of twenty or thirty days each. The Roman calendar divided the year into the months, comprising 304 days, about 738 years before Christ. This year was fifty one days less than the solar year, corresponding in no degree with the present seasons. The Julian calendar was based upon ths solnr year of 365 days and six hours, 45 B. C. The Emperor, Julius Caesar acting noon the evidence and advice of astronomers, mad< provision. at this time, for the excess of the solar year over the number of days by introducing bissextile or leap year, when the year was 366 days, tnc name being derived from two sixes.

lhe Gregorian calendar commenced in 1582. A. D. At the time of the Julian reform the true solar calendar was known to be composed of 365 days, five hours and for-ty-nine minutes. In 1582 this differ* enoe had amounted to ten days. To correct this error Pope Gregory or dained that that year sho u>d have only 156 days, by which order the sth of October became the 15th of Octo her. To prevent a recurrence of this diflculty it was ordered that the first year in each centuiy should not be bissextile or leap year excepting ev* eiy fourth century. Thus the first years of the eighteenth nnd nineteenth were not leap years, and 1900 will not bo but the year 2000 will be, bissextile. In this way the difference between the civil and the natural year will not amount to a dav is 5,000 years. In Spain, Portugal, and part of Italy, the Pone was exactly obeyed. In France, the change took place In the same year, by calling the 10th the 20th of December. In the Lew Coun tries, the change was from the 15*h December to the 25th; but it was re sisted by the protestant part of the community till the year 1 7 00. The Catholic Nations, in general, adopt ed the style ordained by their sovereign pontiff; but the protestants would not receive even a purely scientific improvement, from such hands. The Lutherans of Germany, Switzer land and of the Low Countries at length gave way in 1700, when it had become necessary to omit eleven in stead of ten days. A bill to this effect had been brought had been brought before the Parliament of England in 1585, but does not appear to have gone beyond a second reading in the House of Lords. It was not till 1751, and after great inconvenience had been experienced for nearly two centuries from the difference es the rec oning, that an act was passed (24 George II 1751) for equalizing the style in Great Britain and Ireland with that used in other countries of Europe, It was then enacted that eleved days should be omi.ted after the 2nd of September, 1752, so that ensuing day should be the 14th Rus sia is now cht only country which adheres to the old style.