Page:Somerville Mechanism of the heavens.djvu/51

Rh minutes. The apparent and mean time coincide four times in the year.

Astronomers begin the day at noon, but in common reckoning the day begins at midnight. In England it is divided into twenty-four hours, which are counted by twelve and twelve; but in France, astronomers adopting decimal division, divide the day into ten hours, the hour into one hundred minutes, and the minute into a hundred seconds, because of the facility in computation, and in conformity with their system of weights and measures. This subdivision is not used in common life, nor has it been adopted in any other country, though their scientific writers still employ that division of time. The mean length of the day, though accurately determined, is not sufficient for the purposes either of astronomy or civil life. The length of the year is pointed out by nature as a measure of long periods; but the incommensurability that exists between the lengths of the day, and the revolutions of the sun, renders it difficult to adjust the estimation of both in whole numbers. If the revolution of the sun were accomplished in 365 days, all the years would be of precisely the same number of days, and would begin and end with the sun at the same point of the ecliptic; but as the sun's revolution includes the fraction of a day, a civil year and a revolution of the sun have not the same duration. Since the fraction is nearly the fourth of a day, four years are nearly equal to four revolutions of the sun, so that the addition of a supernumerary day every fourth year nearly compensates the difference; but in process of time further correction will be necessary, because the fraction is less than the fourth of a day. The period of seven days, by far the most permanent division of time, and the most ancient monument of astronomical knowledge, was used by the Brahmins in India with the same denominations employed by us, and was alike found in the Calendars of the Jews, Egyptians, Arabs, and Assyrians; it has survived the fall of empires, and has existed among all successive generations, a proof of their common origin.

The new moon immediately following the winter solstice in the 707th year of Rome was made the 1st of January of the first year of Cæsar; the 25th of December in his 45th year, is considered as the date of Christ's nativity; and Cæsar's 46th year is