EARLIEST STAGES OF ASTRONOMY. 113 



Still, the recurrence of the appearances which suggest the notion 

 of a Year is so obvious, that we can hardly conceive man without it. 

 But though, in all climes and times, there would be a recurrence, and 

 at the same interval in all, the recurring appearances would be ex- 

 tremely different in different countries ; and the contrasts and resem- 

 blances of the seasons would be widely varied. In some places the 

 winter utterly alters the face of the country, converting grassy hills, 

 deep leafy woods of various hues of green, and running waters, into 

 snowy and icy wastes, and bare snow-laden branches ; while in others, 

 the field retains its herbage, and the tree its leaves, all the year ; and 

 the rains and the sunshine alone, or various agricultural employments 

 quite different from ours, mark the passing seasons. Yet in all parts 

 of the world the yearly cycle of changes has been singled out from 

 all others, and designated by a peculiar name. The inhabitant of the 

 equatorial regions has the sun vertically over him at the end of every 

 period of six months, and similar trains of celestial phenomena fill up 

 each of these intervals, yet we do not find years of six months among- 

 such nations. The Arabs alone, 1 who practise neither agriculture nor 

 navigation, have a year depending upon the moon only ; and borrow 

 the word from other languages, when they speak of the solar year. 



In general, nations have marked this portion of time by some word 

 which has a reference to the returning circle of seasons and employ- 

 ments. Thus the Latin annus signified a ring, as we see in the deriva- 

 tive annulus : the Greek term eviavrbg implies something which re- 

 turns into itself: and the word as it exists in Teutonic languages, of 

 which our word year is an example, is said to have its origin in the 

 word yra, which means a ring in Swedish, and is perhaps connected 

 with the Latin gyrus. 



Sect. 2. Fixation of the Civil Year. 



THE year, considered as a recurring cycle of seasons and of general 

 appearances, must attract the notice of man as soon as his attention 

 and memory suffice to bind together the parts of a succession of the 

 length of several years. But to make the same term imply a certain 

 fixed number of days, we must know how many days the cycle of the 

 seasons occupies ; a knowledge which requires faculties and artifices 

 beyond what we have already mentioned. For instance, men cannot 

 reckon as far as any number at all approaching the number of days in 

 the year, without possessing a system of numeral terms, and methods 



1 Idcler, Berl. Trans. 1813, p. 51. 

 VOL. I. 8 



