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CALENDAR. 



EXPORT TKAPK. 



Internal Transit Duties A very great improve- 

 ment has recently been effected in the domestic 

 economy of our Indian empire, by the abolition of 

 the duties on the transit of goods from one part of 

 the country to another. These duties have existed 

 in India from a very remote period ; and, by ob- 

 structing the intercourse between its different dis- 

 tricts, were singularly pernicious. 



CALENDAR, (a.) or the division of time into 

 years, months, weeks, and days. It is said, in the 

 account of the creation, that the heavenly bodies 

 were intended to measure times, seasons, days and 

 years. In most cases, they do furnish us with the 

 measures by which we go. The earth's revolu- 

 tion on its axis furnishes the measure of a day. A 

 week is measured by the quarterly changes of the 

 moon ; the measure of a month is suggested by the 

 time which it takes the moon to go through its cir- 

 cle of changes ; a year is measured by the earth's 

 revolution in its orbit round the sun. 



There are some divisions of time now in use, 

 which are not measured by the heavenly bodies; 

 such are the subdivisions of the day into minutes 

 and hours. To begin with the minutes. It is 

 evident that such a division could not have been 

 in use in very ancient times, because there was 

 nothing to measure it. There was no timepiece 

 invented; the only thing of the kind known 

 was the dial; but so far from measuring minutes, 

 that invention could not measure hours; the hours 

 measured by sun-dials were not of fixed length, 

 but proportioned to the length of the day. The 

 dial of ancient times must have been a very im- 

 perfect thing. Herodotus gives us to understand 

 that the Chaldeans were the inventors, and it 

 was doubtless from their country, that the me- 

 morable dial of Ahaz, mentioned in scripture, 

 was brought. But so slowly was the invention 



improved, that at the time of the first Punic \vnr, 

 a dial was brought to Rome, and set up in the 

 forum, which was made for a different latitude ; 

 and no one in the city seems to have known any 

 pood reason, why it should not keep as good time 

 in that latitude, as in the one for which it was 

 made. They easily discovered that it was of no 

 use to them; but what was the matter with it, or 

 how to mend it, no one was able to tell. 



The clepsydra or water-clock was a later inven- 

 tion, and might have answered the purpose, if the 

 ancients had known the laws that govern the mo- 

 tions of fluids. The hour was measured very much 

 as it is in the hour-glass, by the time which it took 

 a given quantity of water to drop from the upper 

 glass into the one below. But, unluckily, they did 

 not know that when there was much water it 

 would run out faster than when there was little, 

 so that, though it would serve like the hour-glass 

 to measure a single hour, it could not measure 

 equal successive hours, nor could it measure the 

 parts of a a single hour. The Persian clepsydra 

 was different ; a small metallic cup perforated at the 

 bottom was placed on the surface of a larger ves- 

 sel of water, where it filled gradually and sunk at 

 the expiration of the hour. The only important 

 use to which these water-clocks were applied, was 

 to determine the length of pleadings in court 

 houses. To prevent the advocate from speaking 

 too long, he was allowed so much time, measured 

 by the water-clock, and if he could not get through 

 his argument in the time assigned, so much the 

 worse for his client. In puritanical times preachers 

 kept an hour-glass on the pulpit cushion, for the 

 same purpose, but they by no means regarded the 

 hint which it gave them. 



As for clocks, they are entirely modern ; they 

 are inventions of the monks of the middle ages. 

 When we read of clocks, however, in early times, 

 we must not think of any thing finished like our 

 time pieces ; they were probably such as the 

 wooden clock of a pedlar might have looked down 

 upon with disdain. These things show, that in 

 extreme antiquity, they could not be acquainted 

 with minutes, for want of something to measure 

 them. When they spoke of a moment, they called 

 it the twinkling of an eye, or glance of an eye ; 

 but this, of course, was no measure of time. 



Passing then to the hours ; we are not to sup- 

 pose, when we see the word hour in ancient writ- 

 ings, that it had the same meaning then which it 

 has now. In the writings of Moses, it means sim- 

 ply the time when any thing happened or was to 

 happen, as in the expression of our Saviour, " My 

 hour is not yet come." In Homer and Hesiod the 

 hours were the seasons of the year. In mythology, 

 the hours were considered as goddesses who pre- 

 sided over the seasons of the year. In the book 

 of Daniel, the word hour is used, but it seems to 

 mean a moment, and not an extended portion of 

 time: nor do we know of any passage in the Old 

 Testament, where the word is used to denote any 

 measured portion of a day. In the Apocryphal 

 writings there are some; but those, compared with 

 the books of the Old Testament, are quite modern 

 writings. 



How then, were the day and night divided ? for 

 there must have been some divisions, to answer 

 the purposes of life. They had some, whicli an- 

 swered their purpose in a general way. The night, 

 in the Old Testament times, was divided into three 

 equal parts, called the first watch, the second or 



