[ 359 ] 



LVII. On the" Connoissance des Terns pour VAn 1820.'^ 



JDaron de Zach has published in the October number of the 

 Journal des Voyages, Decouvertes, et Navigations modernes, a 

 curious criticism on the Connoissance des Terns. The Observa- 

 tory of Paris never had a more unsparing critic than this learned 

 foreigner. " The whole calendar," he says, " of the Connois- 

 sance des Terns for the year 1820 is false from the beginning to 

 the end. The four ember-weeks, the ecclesiastical computation, 

 every thing is erroneous : there is not a Sunday or a |feast which 

 answers to its true date, nor even to the true day of the week. 

 Easter Sunday, for example, is marked opposite the 17th of 

 April, which was a Tuesday; Ash Wednesday is made to fall on 

 a Thursday ; the feast of Corpus Christi is allotted to a Satur- 

 day ; and the first Sunday of Advent, which should fall in De- 

 cember, is given to November ; and so with others." 



Certainly these are very serious faults, and may have serious 

 consequences. Baron de Zach admits that they have been in 

 part corrected in the Connoissance des Terns for next year. But 

 these corrections, he observes very judiciously, come after the 

 feast, and never had the phrase a more literal application. Per- 

 sons who, deceived by the learned calendar of 1820, may have 

 eaten a chicken on Good Friday, believing that they were only the 

 length of Shrove Tuesday, will not discover till 1822 that they 

 have violated the precepts of their religion ! 



The learned Editors of the Connoissance des Terns have pre- 

 tended that the errors with which they are reproached are only 

 to be found in some copies. M. de Zach takes notice of this ex- 

 cuse, but gives it no credit. " All our correspondents," he says, 

 "have expressed themselves to us with more or less acrimony and 

 surprise in this respect. I have had all the copies at the book- 

 sellers' shops of Genoa verified, and there was not one of them 

 which was not false ; — many have been already sent into various 

 parts of the world, to the great risk and peril of navigators." 



The Nautical part of this Almanack does not appear to M. d& 

 Zach more carefully prepared than the liturgic. It is in vain 

 that the Editors have published successively long lists of errata, 

 M. de Zach corrects their corrections ; he finds errata even in 

 their errata. Thus in the month of December there is a luna- 

 tion wanting. This is not much, to be sure; but when a quarter 

 is overlooked, why may not as well a whole moon l)e forgotten ? 



All the annuaries; all the ephcmerides of Europe have an- 

 nounced the passage of Mercury across the disk of the sun, which 

 was to take place in 1822. The astronomers of Paris alone 

 have not remarked this very remarkable pha.'noniencui. In the 

 Connoissance des Tcms there is no mention of it. 



The 



