fcoTSwoRTH] THE NEED OF A "RATIONAL ALMANAC" 217 



moons should be counted in the coming year. As there was no pxed 

 date in the solar year known to the common people, the populace could 

 not detect when the year was declared one moon wrong, because the 

 system, if loyally followed, varied the moons nearly three-fourths of a 

 month from the solar seasons, because 365.24 days divided by 29.53 per 

 lunation, equals 12.37 moons per year; hence two years being 24.74 

 moons, indicated Agricultural seasons .74 of a moon, or 22 days hehind 

 at the end of the second year. To rectify that, 13 moons were required 

 in the third year, which registered the seasons three days too early. 

 Next, the fourth year's seasons were 19 days behind, and so on, like the 

 confusing Easter wanderings we foolishly continue that way. 



The Pontiffs abused their high powers when bribed by Eoman rulers 

 to extend their periods of lucrative office by declaring thirteen moons 

 when there should have been twelve, to personally gain another month's 

 taxes. That naturally developed the harmful system of public plunder 

 (now called "graft") and led to political patronage thrusting un- 

 worthy men to the front, regardless of the serious fact that farmers 

 were thereby misled into sowing seed, etc., too late or too early; with 

 the inevitable result that bad crops caused famine and impoverished the 

 people the farther their sowing moon (then known by its number in the 

 year), was drifted from the season. Thus, their "New Year's Day" 

 varied in solar date, and as the Pontiff was in collusion with the Consul 

 when he directed the heralds to announce the New Year by the Roman 

 Consul publicly hammering the annual nail into the Temple of Minerva, 

 the Goddess of Wisdom and Science, the people accepted the year's 

 length then regulated in that crude way. 



The great object of our calendars and almanacs is to register the 

 beginning of each new year on the same fixed date of the solar year 

 and correctly tabulate the 365 days in fixed order throughout the seasons, 

 which are daily indicated by the sun's noon elevation. The moon can- 

 not be wisely used to register either the true seasons nor measure months 

 of any fixed' length in days, which Julius Caesar found were absolutely 

 necessary for good government to help the people and prevent the abuses 

 which had drifted the almanac eighty days from the true seasons by 

 the year 46 B.C. He realized that the grave public loss and confusion 

 caused by that moon-wandering from the seasons could best be avoided 

 by having fixed lengths for each month, entirely ind-ependent of the moon, 

 and always beginning the year upon one precise day of a fixed season. 



Julius Caesar, therefore, established the basis of our almanacs by 

 his great reform which fixed alternate months of thirty-one and thirty 

 days, and began the 1st of January in the year 45 B.C. with the " first 

 New Moon that shone after the Winter Solstice." The urgent public 

 need did not permit of delaying that great change until the new moon 



