MEMOIR EXPLANATORY OF A NEW PERPETUAL CALENDAR. 115 



The mere relative position of these right-hand asterisks, to those already placed on the. 

 left, serves to ascertain without calculation, the coincidence or otherwise, of the prescribed 

 secular adjustments; and to indicate at once, by a process rather more direct and simple 

 than Lord .Macclesfield's, the joint effect upon the Calendar Moon's Age, of the omission 

 three times in every 100 years, of a 29th of February, on the one hand; and of the 

 addition, eight times in every 2500 years, of an earfra-Epact, on the other. For it is 

 obvious, with reference to the normal bissextile intercalation of the Julian Calendar, and 

 to its recurring Epacts, which depend upon the Golden Nos., and are, through them, 

 connected with the Gregorian Epacts, by a definite law both of analogy and deviation, 

 that mi the left, an asterisk means deduct nothing; a blank means deduct one day: and 

 that on the right, an asterisk means add one day; a blank means add nothing. 

 NOW having at the Cent. Figs. 15 and 16 as a fixed point of departure, theEquation It 



WHENCE we draw the following general, and almost mechanical, Rule for obtaining the 

 whole seri >s of Eunisolar Equations in Column C. viz.: 



Descending from century to century in the central Column of Gregorian Eras, 



Keep the Equation the same as before, when a single * occurs on either side; 



Diminish the last equation by 1 when the asterisk appears on neither side; 



And increase the last equation by 1 when the * ' appear on both sides; 

 but limiting, of course, this generally, but not uniformly, receding series by the cycle of 

 30 or 0. In tin- manner is readily produced a BUCCession of suitable Epacts. susceptible 

 of indefinite extension, and requiring no supplemental precepts, such as Lord Maccles- 

 field conceived would become necessary after the year H99. 



Before that distant age arrives, the Civil Calendar will doubtless undergo the sliiihi 

 modification generally recommended by modern astronomers, of omitting a single bis- 

 tile intercalation al everj 1000th year, which would maintain an almost perfect ac- 

 cord mce I" twe< n the seasons and the beginnings of the year, for a thou -and centuries to 

 c 'HP : and the Eecl< siastical Calendar also will most probably receive, cotemporaneousrj 



t Although the Equation 1, nn the right ol I aria] figures 1(>, results necessarily from the arbitrary 

 appropriation of the Epacl •-£'>, with the Golden Number 8, to the iir.-t year of the Reformed Calendar, and docs 

 not depend upon, (hut is the same with, the preceding Equation, it nevertheless happens, in consequence ol di 

 leap year being suppressed until 1700, and of no Enact being added until 1800, to obey the general law of th< 

 asterisks, as expressed in the text. 



