CURIOSITIES OF THE CALENDAR.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2444, 29 December 1892, Page 4

CURIOSITIES OF THE CALENDAR.

Our ordinary year of .'Mo days falls short of a solar year by close on (5 hours, or. to hi. 1 , exact, by 20.'.i.')7 seconds. This deficiency would in a century amount to 2-1- (lays 5 hours oo minutes. Julius Caesar introduced Jeap year with a view to overcome the dillieiilfy : but adding 2-7 days in 1.00 years gives 18 hours 25 minutes too much. The result of the Julian correction was that the calendar began to run a way from the sun. and in 1580 the sun stood 11 days in the rear. Evidently—or rather obviously—the sun could not be altered, so Pope Gregory made a reformation of the calendar. Ha arranged that when the number denoting the century was not a 'multiple of four, that century was not to be a leap year. Since 1850 the error resulting from the amended calendar of the Pope lias not amounted to the tenth of a day. It will amount to 1 day in the year of grace 5280. This year will have to be made an ordinary year instead of a leap year. The 19th century began on the morning of Thursday. January. Ist. 1801, and will end at midnight on Monday, December 31st, IUOO. It will contain 86,524 days. Thursday, Friday, Saturday. Sunday, and Monday will each have occurreds2lß times; Tuesday and Wednesday eacli 5217 times Christmas will have; fuUen on Sunday

15 times. New Year's Day will have fallen 15 rimes on each of Sunday and Friday, and 14 times on each of the other days. A year repeats itself every 28 years after. Thus the leap years 1804, 1832, 1860, and 1888 all began upon a Sunday, and the calendar is thus the same for each. Ordinary years also recur in periods of 11,11 and 6 sum (28). Thus 1863, 1874, 1885, and 1891 all began upon a Thursday. An ordinary year must 3iid on the same day of the week as it began. October always begins on the same day as January: February, March and November start always the same; July follows April; December follows fSeptember i while May, June and August eacli begin upon a day distinct from one another, and from every other month. These remarks do not apply to leap years. Sunday claimed the 29th of February three times in this century, in 1824, 1852 and 1880. February 29th, 1908, will fall upon a Sunday. The first day of a century cannot fall on a Wednesday, Friday, or Sunday, and we must leave our readers to puzzle out this fact for themselves.