CHRONOLOGY. 



409' 



Chronolo- TABLE III. Shewing the time of New Moon cor. 

 gy, Mathc- responding to the Golden Number, betneen the years 

 A. D. 1900 and A. D. 2199. 



matical. 



letter. 



SMar ey- The solar cycle is a period of 28 years, at the end of 

 c ' e - which the days of the week correspond to the same days 



of the month. 



The first seven letters of the alphabet A, B, C, D, E, 

 F, G, have been employed by chronologers to mark 

 the several days of the week, the first letter standing 

 for the first of January and so on ; and since one of 

 these letters must necessarily stand opposite to Sunday, 

 Dojtiinical it is called the dominical letter, or Sunday letter, and is 

 printed in a capital form, the other six letters, which de- 

 signate the other six days of the week, being printed in 

 small characters. Then, since a Julian year of 36o days 

 contains 52 weeks and one day, it is obvious that the 

 year must begin and end on the same day of the week, 

 and consequently the next year must commence on the 

 day following. Had there been only 52 weeks in the 

 common year, without any days remaining, the year 

 would have constantly begun on the same day of the 

 week. When January, therefore, begins on Sunday, 

 the dominical letter for that year is A, and since the 

 next year must begin on Mcmday, Sunday will be the 

 7th day, to which the letter G is annexed, which will 

 therefore be the dominical letter for that year. The 

 third year will begin on Tuesday, and as Sunday falls on 

 the sixth day, F will be the dominical letter. Hence it 

 follows that the dominical letters will succeed each other 



in a retrograde order, viz. G, F, E, D, C, B, A, and if ChronoSa 

 there was no leap year, the same days of the week would, )'> M*'' 1 ' 



in the course of seven years., return to the same days of , \'-'im' 



the month. But since leap year contains 52 weeks, 

 and two days over, any leap year beginning on Sunday, 

 will end on Monday, and the following year will begin 

 on Tuesday, the first Sunday of which must fall on the 

 sixth of January, to which the dominical letter F corre- 

 sponds, and not G as in common years. As the leap 

 year returns every fourth year, the regular succession of 

 the dominical letter is interrupted, and does not return 

 to its former state till after 7 X *, or 28 years ; when the 

 same days of the week will correspond with the same 

 days of the month as formerly. 



The following Tables contain the dominical letters 

 both for the old and new stile, and will be understood 

 from the annexed example. 



EXAMPLE. Let it lie required to find the dominical 

 letter for the year 150 before Christ. Subtract one 

 from the given year, which leaves 1 19, and it will be 

 found from entering Table IV. with the 100 years at the 

 head, and the 40 at the side, that A is the dominical let- 

 ter required. 



TABLE IV. Containing the Dominical Letters for -1200 

 Years before theChristian jEra. Old Slile. 



VOL. VI. PART II. 



