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NOTES AND QUERIES. tns.v. APRIL <>, 1912.

off by quatrefoils. January tinguished from July thus :

January begins

may

be dis-

The last, and odd, day of the year will be represented by W if this character

denoted the 1st of January, as is usual ; so that to follow on the next year without a break the 1st of January would have

to be represented by pj This arrange- ment would have the advantage that the same day of the week is always represented by the same symbol ; but at the same time it would involve a set of seven entirely dis- tinct calendars, which is avoided by the simple expedient of changing the Sunday letter from year to year, and always starting

with /^ on the 1st of January.

Suppose it is found, by ascertaining the date of Sunday in the current week and then counting it out on the calendar, that

h

V

Their meaning is apparent. If the Sunday letter for any year is known, that for the ensuing year is the next one to it, reading in the usual direction from left to right. Where two runes occur, one vertically above the other, the upper one denotes the Sunday letter of the first two months of a leap year, and the lower one that for the remainder of the year. It will be seen that the cycle requires twenty-eight years for its comple- tion.

Before the adoption of the Gregorian, or New Style, calendar, the solar cycle of twenty-eight years could be used inde- finitely ; but now that three out of every four centurial years are not leap years, the cycle is not complete until after four hundred years. It would not be practicable to represent such a cycle in the way that has

the Sunday letter for some particular year is b then, instead of continuing to use

this symbol in the next year, the one which precedes it in the futhork must be taken. Taking the following seven runes as the first week in January,

it is seen that Sunday, in the first year of the example, is on 3 January, and in the second year on 2 January, which is in accordance with common knowledge.

This change will hold good for any whole

year in the case of a common year ; but

since leap - year day cannot conveniently

i be represented on the calendar, 1 March

j will in reality be two days ahead of 28

, February, although the calendar represents


 * them as consecutive dates. This means

j that the Sunday letter must now be moved

back one character more. Thus the Sunday

i letter never changes otherwise than to the


 * preceding letter ; but whereas common

I years have only one letter for the whole

year, leap years have two one to be used

j from 1 January to 28 February, and the

other from 1 March to 31 December, all

dates being inclusive. The sequence of

Sunday letters is given by a group of runes

at the end near the ferrule, which are as

follows :

>

been discussed, but a jump would have to be made once a century for three cen- turies in succession. E. CHAPPELL.

(To be continued.)

CHARLES DICKENS. FEBRUARY TTH, 1812 JTJNTS 9TH, 1870-.

(See ante, pp. 81, 101, 121, 141, 161, 182, 203, 223, 243.)

DICKENS was now hard at work on 'Our Mutual Friend,' the first number of which was published May, 1864, the last, No. 20, appearing November, 1865. It will be remembered by many what disputes there have been as to this title, but Dickens had; chosen it four years before its publication, and he held to it. As early as 1861 he was-