Leap Tear

Feilding Star, Volume XIV, Issue 17, 28 July 1892, Page 4

Leap Tear

The year 1892 contains 366 days, aod is therefore called a ' leap year." Why this name was given to the years when an extra day was given to the month of February is unknown, but it probably arose trom the fact that any date in such a year after the added: day (February 29) " leaps over" the day of the week on which it would fall 1 inordinary years. Thus, March 1, 1891, tell on Sunday. In ordinary years the same date in the following year would iall on Monday, but in 1892 it falls on Tuesday. The same name is found in mediaeval English; and in icelandish, and a synonymous word is used in Dutch. The Germans caii it schaltyaar, literiy *• iDtercalary year," while in the Latin languages it is always called the bissextile year, referring to the custom of the Romans "of inserting ti,e extra day on the sixth day before the calenus oi March Tue astronomical year is measured by the length of time required for the earth to make a ievolution about the sun. The leugth of this year is 365 dap 5 hours 48 minutes and 46 seconds. Ihe ca.endar year is therefore abo.it six huurs too short lo remedy 'Ins lauit tbe Romans in the time ol Julius Caesar determined to introduce an extra day in every four years But a yea; of ?G5 days and six hours is a lit'le longer than the actual | i.me required ior the revolution of ihe • arth about tbe sun. In the course «1 centuries this difference became considerable, and in ihe sixteenth century the equinoxes occurred eleven or twelve days sooner than tlie\bbould have occurred according to the calendar, or on tbe tenth instead ol the twenty-first of March, 'lo correct this the Council oi .Nice, called by Pope Gregory XIII,, ordained that the fifth of October, 1582, should be called the fifteenth, and that the closing year in each century—l7oo, 1800, and 1900, etc—should not be counted as leap year except when the number ot the century was divisible by four. Thus, 1600 was and 2000 and 2400 will be leap years. England did not auopt the Gregorian calendar until 1752, and Russia has never adopted it, consequently the hussian reckoning is now tweive days behind ours.