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 leap years. Historians hardly ever refer to, and never cite, the Julian period, but on the other hand they very frequently count the years—no matter in what period or country—as opening with 1st January. Hence as regards dates falling between 1st January and 25th March, there is often a year of difference in the historical dates.

56. was the invention of an Amien'sAmiens [sic] friar in 1683. Its factors were:—a solar cycle (28 years) × a lunar cycle (19) × 30, and thus its duration was meant to be 15,960 years, but it never bad more than one academic interest even in France.

57., was first heard of in the first year of the seventy-fifth Olympiad. Its author, the celebrated Athenian astrologer, Meton, found that nineteen years made a period at the end whereof the moon was to the sun in the same position as the lesser was to the greater light at the start of the period. It was such a valued chronological check that it was cited in the Greek Fasti in letters of gold, hence the "golden number" of our calendar. To find this cycle add one to the A.D. year, and divide by nineteen. The remainder is the golden number. Thus 1895 plus 1 = 1896 ÷ 19 = $99 15⁄19$: therefore fifteen is the golden number for 1895.

58. .—Through a curious and accidental typographical concurrence, which some time ago appeared in a Scottish newspaper, the great chronological gulf which exists between the Jews and Christendom is