350 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 



succeeding year must begin so that the equinox will occur some time 

 during the first twenty-four hours. Though the names of the different 

 months are derived from four different languages, they are narrowed in 

 their meaning to the special climate of particular localities. If there 

 were any good scientific reason for shifting the beginning of the year 

 from the solstice to the equinox, only southern astronomers would have 

 selected the autumnal equinox. * 



Of the Republican Calendar, the late John Quincy Adams said : 

 " This system has passed away and is forgotten. This incongruous 

 composition of profound learning and superficial frivolity, of irreligion 

 and morality, of delicate imagination and coarse vulgarity, is dissolved." 

 Unfortunately the effects of this calendar, though it was used for only 

 about twelve years, have not passed away. It has entailed a perma- 

 nent injury on history and on science. The conversion of the Julian 

 and Gregorian reckonings into each other is comparatively simple It 

 is done by adding or subtracting a quantity so constant that it only 

 changes three times in the course of four hundred years. But the 

 reduction of Republican dates into Gregorian style is more perplex- 

 ing, especially if it must be done on the sudden, when the mind is 

 absorbed in other studies. The only sufficient remedy is a full con- 

 cordance for every one of the forty-four hundred and nineteen days 

 during which the revolutionary calendar was used. Mr. John J. 

 Bond f has made some approach to this by printing the Gregorian 

 dates for the first and last days of each month of the Republican Cal- 

 endar, and also the Republican dates for the first and last days of each 

 Gregorian month. But, unhappily, he has been led into error, even 

 in this partial reduction, by supposing that the years IV., and VIII., 

 and XII., of the new era were leap years in fact, because they were 

 called sextile or the last of the Franciades. It appears, however, by 

 the Connaissance des Terns, that the extra day was introduced at the 

 end of the years III., and VII., and XI., corresponding to September 

 22, 1795, September 22, 1799, and September 22, 1803. Conse- 

 quently there must be an error of one day in Bond's Tables for the 

 years IV., and VIII.. and XII., of the Republican era. 



The Bureau of Longitudes, established by a law of June 25, 1795 

 (Messidor 7, An III.), was charged by Article IX. of its regulations 

 with the duty of presenting, each year, to the Legislative Body an 



* Delambre. Astronomie, III., p. 696. 



t Handy Book of Rules and Tables, pp. 102- 112. 



