were graven the golden numbers, dominical letters, and epacts of the different Sundays in each quarter of the year. Johannes de Monte-Regio, in 1472, composed the earliest European almanac that issued from the press; and, before the end of that century, they became common on the Continent. In England they were not in general use until the middle of the sixteenth century. The almanac, in its simple form as a calendar, agrees in many respects to the fasti or festival-roll of the Romans. It is of ancient date, and at first was no more than a calendar of Pagan festivals. The word calendar comes from the Latin verb calare, to call, or calens, its participle, on account of the custom of the pontiffs summoning the people to apprise them of the festivals occurring in each respective month: these occasions are designated dies calenda—the calends or first days of the month. Such was the beginning of our almanac. The fasti seems to be an extension of the primitive religious calendar, and to the pagan feast-days, added the days on which the magistrates were elected and held court. This was its first civil form. The calendar of the almanac now in use is an improvement on that of Romulus. He divided the year into ten months, beginning with March. His year consisted of 304 days. Numa improved on Romulus, and added two months, January to the beginning, and February to the end of the year. In 452 B. C., the Decemvirs placed February after January, and fixed the order of the months. The year at this time consisted of 3651 days. According to the imperfect mode of reckoning by the Romans, after the addition of the months of January and February, B. C., 452, the twenty-fourth of February was called the sixth before the calends of March, sexto calendas. In the intercalary year this day was repeated and styled bis sextó calendaswhence we derive the term bissextile. The corresponding term leap year, is, however, infelicitously applied, inasmuch as it seems to intimate that a day was leapt over, instead of being thrust in, which is the fact. It may be remarked that in the ecclesiastical calendar, the intercalary day is still inserted between the twentyfourth and twenty-fifth of February. Bissextile, or leap-year, therefore contains three hundred and sixty-six days, and occurs every fourth year. Leap-year is, according to traditionary lore, invested with sundry privileges and immunities to the fair. The Comic Almanac says, 'it takes three springs to make one leap year! Sosigenies, the astronomer, induced Cæsar to abolish the lunar year, and regulate time by the sun. Gregory the Thirteenth, in 1582, corrected the calendar, and placed it on its present basis. The Gregorian calendar was received at once by all the Roman Catholic States of Europe. The Protestant powers refused, for some time, to adopt it. till 1752. In that year, the Julian abolished, and the Gregorian, or new style, adopted. This was done by dropping eleven days, the excess of the Julian over the true solar time. Russia still adheres to the old. England did not receive it calendar, or old style, was Of the written calendars, perhaps the most interesting, as well as the most ancient, were the "folding-almanacs," of which there are a number still to be seen, in a fine state of preservation, in the British and Oxford Museums. Some are in Latin; but others again, dating in the middle of the fifteenth century, are in English. Not a few of these compositions were of an astrological nature, and amongst them may be instanced one by the famous Roger Bacon, and another by the notorious Dr. Lee. In some of the almanacs of the sixteenth century may be found the original of the well-known rhymes on the number of days in each month. They appear slightly different from our modern version: "April, June, and September, Thirty daies as November; Each month also doth never vary, A prominent feature of the earlier almanacs was the prognostications respecting the weather, calculated from the various phases of the moon. Moore's Almanac acquired its great notoriety by this, its sale having at one time reached 480,000 copies. These astrological predictions were even sanctioned by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Astrology is not yet extinct, not only have we even seen a living professor of that occult and venerable science, but the well known "Raphael's Prophetic Almanac," which has existed about thirty-five years, is still annually issued in London. Now as to the origin of the divisions of time! Before the death of JACOB, which happened in 1689, B. C., we find that several nations were so well acquainted with the revolutions of the Moon, as to measure by them the duration of their year. It had been a universal custom among all nations of antiquity as well as the Jews, to divide time into a portion of a week or seven days; this undoubtedly arose from the tradition with regard to the origin of the world. It was natural for those nations, who lived a pastoral life, or who lived under a serene sky, to observe, that the various appearances of the moon were completed nearly in four weeks; hence, the division of a month. Those people again who lived by agriculture, and were acquainted with the division of a month, would naturally remark that twelve of these brought back the same temperature of air, or the same seasons; hence the origin of what is called the lunar year, which has everywhere been recognized in the infancy of science. This, together with the observations of the fixed stars (which we learn from the book of Job, who, according to the best writers, was contemporary with Jacob) must have been very ancient, and led to the discovery of the solar year. The first division of the day was into morning, noon, and night; and these are the only parts of a day mentioned in the Old Testament. But it is probable that men of science had other more accurate divisions, because we find they had sun-dials. Afterwards they divided their days into twelve แ hours; and to this division our Saviour refers when he says, "Are there not twelve hours in a day?" But their hours must have been of different lengths, at different seasons of the year; ́for their hour was a twelfth part of the time the sun continued above the horizon. And as this time is longer in summer than in winter, their summer hours must therefore have been longer than their winter hours. This difference, however, would not be so very sensible in that country as here, as Judea is much nearer to the equator than we are, and the days there, in consequence, nearer equal. Their hours were computed from sunrise; their third hour divided the space between sun-rising and noon; the ninth hour divided the space between noon and sunset. But in the New Testament, we find that they sometimes made use of the Roman mode of reckoning. The Roman reckoning was the same as ours, beginning at midnight, and reckoning to noon, twelve hours; and again from noon till midnight. The Hebrews divided their night into four watches of three hours each. The first from six to nine in the evening; the second from nine to twelve; the third from midnight to three in the morning; and the last to six or sun-rising. The Jews began their year in March, and the months were : -NISAN, ZIF, SIVAN, TAMUZ, AB, ELUL, TISRI, BUL, CISLIEU, TEBEETH, SHEBAT, ADAR. Their civil year commenced with the new moon near the autumnal equinox, in the month called TISRI, corresponding with part of our September and October. The Jewish months were alternately 29 and 30 days and their year of twelve lunations, 354 days. To recover the lost days, they added a whole month after every two or three years, following their twelfth month of Adar, and they called this extra month Ve-adar. The MOHAMMEDANS reckon their days from sun-set till sunrise. The CHINESE begin theirs an hour before midnight, and divide the rotation into 12 parts of 2 of our hours, and give a name to each division. The HINDOOS divide their days into four watches, and each watch into guhrees of 24 minutes each. The great and lesser divisions of time into cycles, epochs, and eras, years, months, weeks, and days; not to mention hours, minutes, and seconds-all respectively subserve the purposes of, and to a great extent exert a controlling influence upon mundane affairs. The most apparent sway of these natural or artificial divisions, is observable in the implicit obedience which nature universally yields to the alternations of day and night, as the allotments assigned to activity and repose. It is true there are some slight infringements upon the rule, by the too servile devotees to fashion and folly, who are accustomed to reverse the order of nature: these, however, but add confirmation to the rule. Again, there seems to exist some difficulty as to the right determining of the precise time at which the day should begin and terminate. Among the ancient nations the day began at sunrise and continued till its light expired: others supposed their day to commence at sunset: the Arabians, again, make theirs to begin at noon, with all navigators and astronomers while we, in common with the ancient Egyptians, and most of the modern Europeans, date from midnight, which, allowing of all the waking hours of day to come together, is manifestly the most convenient and rational. The somewhat arbitrary subdivisions of time into morning forenoon, mid-day, afternoon, evening, and night, are yet not without significance: the same can scarcely be claimed for the more minute distributions of time into hours, minutes, and seconds. Of its sidereal measurements we shall hereafter speak in connection with the zodiacal signs of the months. The Egyptians and Chaldeans dated their new year from the autumnal equinox; so did the Jews for all civil purposes, but their ecclesiastical year began with the vernal. The Mohammedans begin their year the minute the sun enters Aries, the day that Dremschid, the Persian monarch, made his public |