SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES. 279 



year consists of 354 or 355 days. This, to keep the year in 

 accordance \vith the sun, demands the frequent intercala- 

 tion of an extra ' moon ; ' and of such intercalary moons 

 there are 7 in 19 years. Thus, in 7 years out of 19 the 

 year has 13 months. The year of 13 months consists of 

 384 or 385 days. This system of intercalation is believed 

 to date from more than 2000 years B.C. 



The first day of the year is not, as with us, a fixed day, 

 but is a kind of movable feast, never the same two years 

 running. It is the first day of that lunation during which 

 the sun enters our sign Pisces. It may, therefore, be 

 any day between January 22 and February 20, inclusive. 

 Hence the first day of the year must be determined, before 

 the correspondence of the moons with our calendar can be 

 rightly assigned. 



There originally was in all probability a year-cycle of 

 twelve years, but the cycle in use for ages is one of sixty 

 years. The years of the cycle are named by the combina- 

 tion of two series of characters, the one series being ten in 

 number, and the other twelve. I do not know the mean- 

 ing of the series of ten, which runs (i) Kea, (2) Yih, (3) 

 Ping, (4) Ting, &c. The series of twelve consists of the 

 names of animals, (i) Rat, (2) Ox, (3) Tiger, &c. If we 

 call the first series i, 2, 3, . . . 10, and the second series 

 a, b, c, . . . k, in naming the years of the cycle they begin 

 by combining the two series thus : — • 



1st year ......... \a 



2nd „ гЬ 



3rd » у 



and so on to . . . . . \oj 



then 



nth year . . . \h 



1 2th „ zk 



13th „ ъл 



I4th „ \b 



Thus after sixty combinations you arrive again at i л, which 

 is the first year of a new cycle. 



This system is employed to express not only the years 

 of the cycle, but also months, days, and hours. It is applied 



