CALEDONIANS CALENDAR. 



805 



has shown them to be cannibals. They are armed 

 with darts and clubs, but do not use the bow. Their 

 huts are small, and filled with smoke, to defend them 

 from insects. Their language is different from that 

 of Polynesia, and is described as harsh and croaking. 

 Their dress is a girdle of fibrous bark. They also 



wear ornaments of bone or coral, and paint their 

 breasts with wide black streaks. Their hair is nearly 

 woolly, the surface of their bodies shiny and black. 

 Some have the thick lips of the African Negro. 



CALEDONIANS ; the name of a confederacy of 'tribes 

 in what is now Scotland (Britannia Barbara). Tacitus 

 supposes them to be Germans; others, with more 

 reason, Celts. 



CALEMBOURG ; a kind of pun, in which a word is 

 employed in an unusual sense, or by which, without 

 regard to grammar or orthography, some letters are 

 changed, added or left out, without changing the 

 pronunciation. Thus a calembourg is distinguished 

 from the proper j'eu de mot. A Westphalian count 

 Calemberg, who lived in Paris under Louis XV., is 

 said to have amused the circles there by his blunders 

 in the French language, and occasioned the marquis 

 Bievre to introduce this new kind of witticism. As 

 an instance, we adduce the following: A robber 

 demanded from a traveller his purse, putting a pistol 

 to his breast, with the words " La bourse, ou la vie." 

 " Pour ('avis (la vie)," the traveller answered, dryly, 

 " le meilleur queje puisse vous donner, est de quitter 

 votre metier, sans quoi vous serez pendu, et pour la 

 bourse (hair bag) je n'en aipas, parceque je pcrte un 

 cadogan (hair knot)." The French language is rich 

 in such puns, because it is poor in words, and these, 

 consequently, may be taken in different significations. 

 See Pun. 



CALENBERG ; a principality in the kingdom of Han- 

 over, which derives its name from an ancient castle, 

 BOW in ruins, situated 11 or 12 miles south of Han- 

 over. Its extent is 1050 square miles. It has about 

 139,222 inhabitants, chiefly Lutherans. (See Hano- 

 ver.) 



CALENDAR ; the division of time into years, months, 

 weeks, and days ; also a register of these divisions. 

 Among the old Romans, for want of such a register, 

 it was the custom for the pontifex maximus, on the 

 first day of the month, to proclaim (calare) the month, 

 with the festivals occurring, in it, and the time of new 

 moon. Hence calendee and calendar. The periodi- 

 cal occurrence of certain natural phenomena gave 

 rise to the first division of time. The apparent daily 

 revolution of the starry heavens and the sun about 



the earth occasioned the division into days. But as 

 the number of days became too great for convenience, 

 some larger measure of time was found necessary. 

 The changes of the moon, which were observed to 

 recur every 29 or 30 days, suggested the division of 

 time into months. After a considerable period, these 

 also were found to multiply too much, and a still 

 larger measure of time was wanted. Such a one was 

 found in the apparent yearly revolution of the sun 

 round the earth in the ecliptic. The time of this re- 

 volution, after several erroneous calculations hereafter 

 to be mentioned, was finally determined to be a little 

 more than 365 days. This was called a solar year, 

 or, simply, a year, which was divided, according to 

 the former measures of time, into months and days. 

 Now, on account of the great influence of the sun's 

 course in the ecliptic, and its consequent variations 

 of distance from us upon the earth, and the affairs of 

 its inhabitants in all countries, the attention of men 

 would naturally be drawn to this phenomenon. Hence 

 it has happened that all nations, in ai\y degree civil- 

 ized, have adopted the year as the largest measure 

 of time. It is probable that the Phoenicians first, 

 then the Egyptians, and afterwards the Greeks, made 

 use of this mode of reckoning, from whom it was 

 communicated to other nations. The division of the 

 year, however, into months and days, could not have 

 been very accurate at first, because it can be settled 

 only by long and attentive observation. The calen- 

 dar of the oldest nations was quite imperfect. They 

 were satisfied with one which enabled them to manage 

 the common business of husbandry. The Greeks were 

 the first who attempted to adjust the courses of the 

 sun and the moon to each other. For this purpose, 

 they reckoned 12^ revolutions of the moon round the 

 earth for one solar year ; and, to avoid the fractions 

 of a month, they made the year consist of 13 and 12 

 months alternately. Solon, perceiving the defects o* 

 this arrangement, fixed the number of days in a month 

 at 29^, and made the month consist of 29 and 30 days 

 alternately. Still the length of the month and that 

 of % the year were not brought into exact adjustment, 

 and new disorders soon followed. 



Various plans for the reformation of the calendar 

 were proposed from time to time ; but all proved in- 

 sufficient, till Meton and Enctemon finally succeeded 

 in bringing it to a much greater degree of accuracy,' 

 by fixing on the period of 19 years, in which time the 

 new moons return upon the same days of the year as 

 before (as 19 solar years are very nearly equal to 235 

 lunations). (See Cycle.) This mode of computation, 

 first adopted by the Greeks (433 B.C.), was so much 

 approved of, that it was engraven with golden letters 

 on a tablet at Athens. Hence the numoer, showing 

 what year of the moon's cycle any given year is, is 

 called the golden number. This period of 19 years 

 was found, however, to be about six hours too long. 

 This defect Calippus, about 102 years later, endea- 

 voured to remedy, but still failed to make the begin- 

 ning of the seasons return on the same fixed day of 

 the year. 



Among the Romans, their first king, Romulus, in- 

 troduced a year of 10 divisions or months, of which 

 four (namely, March, May, July and October) con- 

 tained 31 days ; the rest (April, June, August, Sep. 

 tember, November and December), only 30. When 

 he discovered that this mode of reckoning was im- 

 perfect, he inserted as many days as were necessary 

 to complete the year, and bring it up to the begin- 

 ning of the following one. His successor, Numa 

 Pompilius abolished this method, added 50 days more, 

 took 1 day from each of the 6 months containing 30 

 days, because even numbers were supposed to be 

 unlucky, and out of the whole 56 days formed 2 new 

 months of 28 days each, which he called January and 



