Leap Year.

Manawatu Herald, 9 January 1896, Page 2

Leap Year.

This year 1896 i 9 Leap- Year or Bissextile. Dm ing it, custom permits, so it is alleged, young ladies to M pop the question " of so much moment in their lives. It is generally understood that Leap Year occurs when the figures of the year divid-d by four ieave no remainder. Ir, is mostly so, hot not always. Ju'ius Cte^ar fixd the solar year to be 865 days 6 honw, comprising as it was then thought, tha period from one vernal equinox to another ; the six hours w« re set aside and at the end of four years, forming a day, the fourth year was made to consist

of 300 days. The day thus added was called intercalary, and was plncpd a day brfora the 24th February, the sixth of rhf> caieacb, which W"vs reckoned iivice, hence called h'sstMik or twice sixth. This addejjj day "with us is the 29 0h FebruavyT

This arrangement makes the year nearly three minutes longer than the astrrjomical year to obviate this, 1700 and 1800 were not, and 1900 will not be leap years, but 2000 will be.

The Roman calendar was introduced by Romulus who divided the year into ten months, comprising 804 days. This year wa3 of 50 days less duration than tb.9 lunar year, and of 61 days less than f.he solar year, and its commencement did not correspond with any fixed season. Numa Pompiliu3 in 713 B.C. added two months, and Julius Ca?3ar further corrected it, but it was Augustus Caj3ar who made it nearly correct.

The calendar was incorrect because the solar year consists of 865 days 5 hours and 49 minutes and not of 865 days 6 hours. In the 16th century the error was discovered by the vernal equinox falling on the 11th instead of the 21sfc March orvi to obviate this Pope Gregory XIII ordained in 1582 that that year should consist of 855 days only and to prevent further irregularity, it was determined that a year ending a century should not be bissextile, with the exception of that ending each fourth century.