

YACHT. 







haft i* of tht same height with them ; aad thus it is possible t: 

 hnnu, if we may BO call them, were attached by a subc. 

 the manuscript uutil then having merely an I. (Sue Foggini's reprint 

 of that Manuscript, and the second lime of the copperplate facsimile of 

 the name (amadryades) ill Burniaun's ' Virgil,' vol. i., facing p. xxxvi. 

 -( the preface.) 



In the English language there is a great tendency to use thin letter 

 at the tnd of words. This has probably arisen "from our habit of 

 giving a tail to the last unit of the Itoman numerals, prefcrrin.- 



Ac. ; no that to please the eye and give a sort of finish to a 



ay, boa, they, were preferred to mi, l>oi, thei. Before we leave 



the form of the letter, it may be observed that in y*, y 1 , for the, that, 



tli.- y has been by an easy error substituted for the Anglo-Saxon )>, 



which had the power of /A. 



The sound of y, so familiar to the English at the beginning of wonts. 

 aa in yet, yvuny, yott, was represented in Latin by a mere i, which 

 however, when so used, received from the grammarians the distinctive 

 name of i cuntunani. Our modern editors have for the most part sub- 

 htituted for it a j. Thus, iugum, or rather ivi:vji, which is now written 

 1 with a Bound which is commonly held to have been 

 the same with our initial y in yuke. The insertion of the sound of a y 

 before vowels u very characteristic of the Hussion language, the alpha- 

 : which has no less than four characters which denote such a 

 sound. The English too have a habit of expressing the sound, though 

 they do not write the letter, whenever a long u begins a word, a* union, 

 wiily, useful ; so that those who write an useful contrivance insert a 

 letter at the cud of the first word which no one would pronounce. In 

 Anglo Saxon the sound of a y was commonly represented by an e 

 before a or o, and by an i before e or , in which cases the allied 

 languages of Iceland, Denmark, and Sweden for the most part employ 

 a./. Thus the Anglo-Saxon writes tori, Eutaland, eow, Eadwanl, ea/tta, 

 UoJ-au for earl, Jutland, you, Edn-<i:-<l. M../A'. << ' <'. On the other 

 hand, ictt, iu'inth, represent yet, youth. (Mask's ' Grammar.') In several 

 of these words the initial y no longer appeal's in modern English. But 

 it would be unsafe to infer that the change always takes place in that 

 direction, for one who observes children in their early attempts to 

 speak, will find that many ore apt to prefix either a w or a y to all 

 words beginning with a vowel. Thus we have heard a child pronounce 

 . Agnet, apple Yuny, Yang, wap ; so that the prefixing a y 

 where there was none, is just as possible as to drop a previously ex- 

 isting y. The sound of y again is heard where the French write U or 

 in vaillanl, nynrau ; in the Spanish U or ft, as in Mallurca, 

 .i i; in the Portuguese Ik or nh, as in film, 3Iinhu; and in the 

 it Jinn ;// or gn, as in Jiylio, ./; //<. Fur the interchange of y with ;/, 

 ce ; for the use of 2 with the sound of y see Z ; lastly, for the con- 

 nection between the sounds olj and y, see J an 1 7.. 



Y.U'HT. A viwel used for pleasure on the water. The love o) 

 yachting indicates a prominent feature of the national character. Clubs 

 and societies are formed all round the coasts of Great Britain, many oi 

 them possessing some of the finest specimens of naval architecture. Of 

 late years pleasure trips to distant countries have much improved the 

 and class of vessels used for recreation. Wealthy owners have 

 ii'teii encouraged novel appliances, and assisted in nautical experiments, 

 which would otherwise have fallen into neglect. 



There are two distinct species of yachts, which are recognisable at 

 Mght, namely : the mere racer, with enormous spars and sails, and 

 deeply ballasted hull, with the finest lines imaginable, but sacrificing 

 cpace and comfort to speed ; and the elegant, well-proportioned, com- 

 modious, safe, but well-manned and fast-sailing family yacht, able to 

 encounter the wars of the elements in any part of the globe. Those 

 accustomed to river navigation only, and who desire to consult the 

 models of thorough "sea-boats," will do well to examine some of the 

 Cowes pilot cutters, and the pilot schooners of the Mersey. Kvcrj 

 precautionary appliance needed for the roughest and nicest practice 

 of seamanship may be found fitted in them with studied compactness 

 Our principal rivers and estuaries in the summer months abound with 

 beautifully-modelled small craft, while the Solent pre-eminently offers 

 the spectacle of a brilliant fleet, owned as well by the wealthy commoner 

 as by the peer. 

 YARD. [\VIIMITS AND MEASURES.] 



YAI.-N. [I'llllKAD.] 



V i : A K. Much connected with this article is to be found in K A I.K.V 



DAK, PERIODS OF REVOLUTION, MOON, SUN, CHRONOLOGY, TIME, &c 



We here confine ourselves to matters of useful reference connected 



with the length and subdivisions of the year, omitting discussion ol 



- of history, which do not directly bear upon chronological 



ning. 



The year is, roughly speaking, the period of time in which the sun 

 make* the circuit of the heavens, and the seasons of agriculture run 



-h their course. 



A tidtrtal year in the period in which the sun moves from a star to 

 the same ogam ; that is, the interval between the two times when the 

 ut the same longitude as a given star. The mean period is 

 .:.V.:iiJl-2 mean solar days, or 365' G h 9" 9-6. 



A 1 1 1 1 year is the tune in which the sun moves from the 



vernal equinox to the vernal equinox again ; and its mean length is 



: 12-2414 mean solar days, or 366" 5 h 48" 49*7. 

 The anomallitlr year is the time in which the sun moves from its 



perigee (or nearest point to the earth) to it* perigee again ; .< 

 ength U 365-2595981 mean solar days, or 365* 6 k 13" 4;>"S. 



The tropical year is shorter than the sun's actual orbital revolution, 

 i tin- sidereal year, because the equinox moves slowly backwards 

 PRECESSION], ami therefore the sun meets it again before it arrives at 

 .he point at which it met it hut. The anomalistic year is longer than 

 .he sidereal year because the perigee moves forward, and the mm is not 

 nearest to the e.irth until it lias passed the longitude at which it was 

 learest to the earth before. The tropical year U the year, wl. 

 distinctive term is applied; for the pa-sago of the sun fi. : 

 southern to the northern side of the ecliptic is the positive pheuo- 

 menon on which the seasons dtpmd, though it may not be co: 

 say that it is then that the succession of seasoi. 



The anomalistic not, and from the theory of gravitation 



most probably cannot, vary by any quantity which the human 

 could appreciate ; but the sidereal and t: - vary very 



ill length. The reason is twofold. In the tir.-t place, the amount of 

 the yearly precession of the equinoxes is slowly .t the 



part of the orbit by which the equinox i wards to mci i the 



sun becomes greater, or the duration of the year less. In tin 

 place, the gradual motion of the equinox, combined with that of the 

 pciigee, brings the part of the orbit which the sun is saved from per- 

 forming by the recession uf the equinox into different 

 respect to the perigee in successive years; so that the except c 1 j 

 is in different years what would have been described in dil 

 The second consideration affects the sidereal year as well 

 tropical ; but since in both coses the effect is very small and slow, a 

 few seconds in a thousand years, there is no occasion to do moi 

 point it out in an article like the present. Laplace mokes the t 

 year to be 13 seconds shorter than it was in the time of II 



The excess of the tropical year over 365 days has been given by 

 different astronomers OB follows : 



h. 

 Kuctcimm and Melon G 



IIii>p:trchus and I'iolemy 

 Hindus . . 

 Albatcnius . 

 \Yulthor . 

 Tycho Braho 



. . 5 



. 5 



. . S 



. 5 



. . 5 



Delaiubre S 



Laplace 5 



m. 

 18 

 55 

 50 

 40 

 48 

 43 

 48 

 43 



57 

 II 



30 



L'l 



50 

 4i 

 51- 



4-J-; 



Whether the present length of the tropical year can be said to be 

 determined within a second, we cannot collect from the writ; 

 astronomers. The method of determining this length is by can-fully 

 or equinoxes (that is, times when the sun is in the 

 solstices or equinoxes) at distant periods, and taking t!. 

 from the whole interval elapsed. Unless that interval wen- a v. hole 

 revolution of the solar perigee with respect to the equinox, t: 

 mean tropical year could not be determined, from observatioi. 

 so well as it might be. 



The civil year must, for convenience, begin with a day, nnJ contain 

 an exact number of days. But any exact number of days would h.u e 

 the disadvantage of the old Egyptian year [SoTin.u- PlKIOD], namely, 

 that the seasons' would be thrown into all parts of the year in suc- 

 cession. Those who lived in the intense heats of March (when that 

 mouth is near the autumnal equinox) would read old poets who 

 describe the spring as about to arrive in that month, or allude 

 past winter, and that before the poets would have become properly 

 ancient : thia alone would be worth avoiding. Of the mode of doing 

 it we shall presently say more; but in the meanwhile we i 



, that it has always been the greater source of difficulty to 

 combine the revolutions of the moon with those of the sun. 



The Jewish, Christian, and Mohammedan religions all iv.-nl.-de their 

 sacred annzversariea more or less by the moon. Various natioi 

 constructed their years on the lunar revolution, though most of them 

 have accommodated their years to the solar year by intercalated mouths. 

 Now, the time between two new moons (that is, the av. 

 29-5305887 days, or about 29J days. If, then, months were mule 

 alternately of 29 and 30 days, l - 2 months would contain 3;'l days, ami 

 11 J days would be necessary to complete the Julian year of SOC'j 

 This would amount to more than a mouth in three years. Taking the 

 most exact values both of the lunation and the solar year, and applying 

 the method in FRACTIONS, CONTINUED, it will be seen that tl. 

 contains, over and above 12 lunations, something less than 3 tu- 

 rn 8 years; more exactly, something more than 1 lun.itioim in 11 

 years; more exactly, something less than 7 lunations in in yeanj 

 more exactly still, something more than 123 lunations in :;: i \ , 

 than 130 in 353, more than 253 in 687, less than 1395 in 3788. T 

 the Julian year, the above figures should be changed into less than 3 

 out of 8, more than 7 out of 19, less than 171 out of 464. 'I 1 :. 

 of 7 lunations in 19 years, which varies very little from the ; 

 whether OH to the real, Julian, or even Gregorian year, is the foundation 

 of the celebrated Metonic cycle [MKTON, in BiOii. Div.], which, among 

 the Greeks and all who have derived knowledge from them 

 been the foundation of the luimolar calendar. It is now well under- 

 stood that the Metonic moon, and not that of the heavens, is the . 

 in the settlement of religious festivals ; that is to say, a moon moving 

 uniformly at such a rate as to make 235 lunations in 19 calendar years. 



