DAY 



703 



this . When tin' curt li ha> made one complete turn, 

 to In in- i In' meridian of the place to the name 

 position among tin- fixed stars a- \\li>n it wits IHMHI 

 tin- day liei'oie, tli.' sun has ill the meantime (ap- 

 paicntly ) moved eastward nearly one degree among 

 tin- stai-, and it takes the earth about lour minutes 

 more to mo\e round so as to overtake him. li tliis 

 eastward motion of tlie sun were uiiiforni, the length 

 of the solar day would lie a-s Dimple and as easily 

 determined a- that of the sidereal. Hut the ecliptic 

 in ^rcat I'irele in which the HUH apparently moves, 

 cm cs tin' earth's ei|iiator, and is therefore more 

 olilii|iie to the direction of the earth's motion at one 

 time than another; and heM'des, as the earth moves 

 in her orbit with varying speed, the rate of the 

 sun's apparent motion in the ecliptic must also 

 \ary. The consequence is, that the length of the 

 solar day is constantly iluctuating ; and to get a 

 fixed measure of solar time, astronomers have to 

 imagine a sun moving uniformly in the celestial 

 equator, and completing its circuit in the same 

 time us the real sun. The time marked by this 

 imaginary -iin is called menu solar tinti- ; when the 

 imaginary sun is on the meridian, it is mean noon ; 

 when the real sun is on the meridian, it is apparent 

 noun. It is obvious that a sun-dial must show ap- 

 parent time, while clocks and watches keep mean 

 time. Only four times in the year do these two 

 coincide. The difference is called the equation of 

 time, localise, when added to or subtracted from 

 apparent time, according as the sun comes too soon 

 or too late on the meridian, it makes it equal to 

 mean time. The mean solar day is divided into 

 twenty-four bom's, the hours into minutes and 

 second.-. A sidereal day, we have seen, is shorter ; 

 its exact length is 23 hours, 56 minutes, 4 seconds 

 of mean solar or common time. Astronomers divide 

 the sidereal day also into twenty-four hours, which 

 are of course shorter than common hours. In the 

 course of a civil year of 365 days, the earth turns 

 on its axis 306 times, or there are 366 sidereal days. 

 Astronomers reckon the day as beginning at noon, 

 and count the hours from 1 to 24. The civil day 

 l>e.gins at midnight, and the hours are counted in 

 two divisions of twelve each. The ecclesiastical 

 day was reckoned from sunset to sunset. The 

 (J reeks counted their day from sunset, as did also 

 the Hebrews, the Romans from midnight, the Baby- 

 lonians from sunrise, the Umbrians from mid-day. 



The diagram will explain the variation in the 

 relative duration of light and darkness at different 

 times of the year and different parts of the earth's 



surface. C represents 

 the position of the 

 earth, P being the 

 north pole or the 

 heavens. E and \V 

 represent the east 

 and west points. 

 EQW and EKW are 

 the celestial equator 

 and the ecliptic re- 

 spectively. Let us 

 sup|M>se the ol>server 

 to oe in the northern 

 hemisphere and that 

 HEH'W is his hori- 

 zon. When the sun is on the equator it is obvious 

 that the arcs EQW and EQ'W are equal i.e. the 

 sun is a.* long above the horizon as it is lelow it. 

 But, if the sun be in the northern half of the 

 ecliptic, its apparent path is a circle parallel to 

 EQW passing through the sun's position; and 

 more of this circle is' above the horizon than below 

 it. Similarly we can explain the appearances for 

 other positions of the sun and of the observer. 



Dav, as opposed to night, varies with the latitude 

 and thr season of the year. As we go north from 



the equator it increases in Hummer, and decrease* 

 in winter. At the equator, day u a little m<.r-, 

 night a little less than twelve IMHII - ; at the pole*, 

 day is a little more, night a little les, than BIX 

 months. For the time of day in different countries, 

 Bee TIMK. 



. I '/'"/. in Law, includes the whole twenty-four 

 hours from midnight to midnight. In reckoning 

 periods of time from a certain event, the day on 

 which the event occurred is excluded. On the 

 other hand, if it lie required to prove survival for a 

 certain numlier of days, it will suHice if the person 

 be alive for any portion, however small, of the la-t 

 day. While an obligation to pay on a certain day 

 would therefore be theoretically discharged by pay- 

 ment before midnight, the law requires that reason- 

 able hours be observed e.g. if the payment (as a 

 bill) is at a bank or place of business, it must be 

 within business hours. 



A lawful day is a day on which there is no legal 

 impediment to the execution of a writ i.e. all 

 days except Sundays and fast-days appointed by 

 government. Criminal warrants, and in Scotland 

 warrants against debtors in nieditatione fugce, are 

 an exception to this rale, and may be both granted 

 and executed on Sundays and fast-days. By 29 Car. 

 II. chap. 7, all contracts made by persons in their 

 ordinary calling on a Sunday are void. The excep- 

 tions to this rule will be explained under LORD s 

 DAY. In England, Christmas-day and Good- 

 Friday generally stand on the same footing with 

 Sundays and fast-days appointed by royal pro- 

 clamation ; but in Scotland there is no exception 

 made in favour of any of the feast or fast days of 

 the church. 



Days of Grace. The time at which a bill is 

 actually due and payable, except in the case of 

 bills payable on demand or at sight, is three days 

 after the time expressed on the face of it, and these 

 three additional clays are called days of grace. If 

 the third day of grace fall on a Sunday, Christmas- 

 day, Good -Friday, or a national fast or thanksgiving 

 day, the bill is payable the day before. If it fall 

 on any of the other bank holidays, or if the last 

 day or grace is a Sunday and the second a bank 

 holiday, the bill is payable on the succeeding 

 business day (see BILL). Day* of grace have now 

 been abolished in many countries, but there are 

 still three allowed in the United States, and ten 

 in Russia. 



Day, JOHN (1522-84), a native of Dunwich, 

 was an early London printer, his most celebrated 

 production being Foxe s Book of Martyrs. 



Day, JOHN, a dramatist, of whose life hardly 

 anything is known. He is mentioned in Henslowe a 

 Diary in 1598 as an active playwright. But few of 

 his earlier works have come down to us save The 

 Blind Beejejar of Bednal Green. Day collaborated 

 freely with contemporary writers, as Chettle and 

 Dekker. Ben Jonson in his conversations with 

 Dninimond of Hawthornden grouped him with 

 some other admirable gentlemen and authors as 

 a rogue and a base fellow. His l>est works that 

 have reached us are a graceful coined v, Iluimmr 

 out of Breath, and The Parliament of Bets, a kind 

 of allegorical masque in which all the characters 

 are bees. ' The very air,' says Charles Lamb, 

 'seems replete with humming and buzzing melodies. 

 Surely bees were never so l>erhymed before.' An 

 edition of Day's works was privately printed by 

 A. H. Bullen in 1881. 



Day, THOMAS, the author of Sandford and 

 M'- rt mi. was liorn in London, 22d June 1748, and 

 thirteen months later, by his father's death, became 

 heir to 900 a year. From the Charterhouse he 

 passed to Corpus Christi College, Oxford, where he 

 formed a close friendship with Richard Lovell 



