Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 34, Number 82, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 June 1902 — How Leap Year Started. [ARTICLE]

How Leap Year Started.

Hampson, in his “Medli OEVI. Kalandarium,” quotes the following quaint tradition from an old Saxon treatise: “Some assert that the bissextus or leap day comes through thjs, that Joshua prayed to God that the sun might stand still for one day's length, that he might sweep the bestthen from the land that God had granted him and his followers. It is true that the sun did stand still for one day’s length over the city of Gebasn, but the day went forward In the same manner ns other days. And the hjasixtus is not through that, as some do think.” In France and some parts of Spain and Portugal there exists a tradition known as “the ghost of leap yea*.” Believers In this say that a marvelous monster annually appears on leap day and disarranges human affairs for the remainder of the year, r