COMMON THINGS TIME. 



intercalary days, had a total length greater by 3 days than 

 due to them by the Julian system rightly understood. "When 

 this error was at length perceived, the consequence of it was 

 rectified by order of Augustus, who decreed that for three succes- 

 sive periods of four years, the intercalary day due to every fourth 

 year should be omitted, so that the excess given to the preceding 

 36 years was compensated by an equal deficiency in the 12 

 following years, after which the regular recurrence of bissextile 

 years was observed. 



The mistake is known to have arisen thus In Roman COT 

 every fourth is our third, 



1234 12 



A B C D E P H I J K &o. 



1234 1234 



Livy describes the cycle of 19 years as one which begins 

 twentieth year. 



90. The common name given to bissextile years in our language 

 is LEAP YEAES, which the dictionaries explain by stating that 

 " every fourth year leaps over a day more than a common year." 

 It is, however, objected by some that the term LEAP year is inap- 

 propriate, inasmuch as leaping over a day would imply its omis- 

 sion, instead of which in such years an extra day is thrust in. 



The term is also explained by stating, that it implies that a day 

 is leaped over in the calendar without giving it a distinct name. 



It is worthy of remark that in the ecclesiastical calendar of 

 foreign countries, the day called " intercalary " in bissextile or 

 leap years, is not the 29th but the 24th of February. 



91. It will be perceived from what has been stated, that some 

 confusion prevailed for nearly forty years from the date of the 

 Julian reform, that is until very near the commencement of the 

 Christian era ; nor is there any historical certainty as to the 

 regular observance of the new method until the commencement of 

 our era. It is certain, however, that the Roman years 761, 765, 

 769, &c., which were the years A.D. 8, 12, 16, &c., were counted 

 as leap years, and about all succeeding dates there is no doubt. 



From these dates, historians and chronologists have reckoned 

 not only forwards but backwards, so as to reduce all historical 

 events to the position in respect to the order of time which they 

 would have held, if the Julian system had always existed. When 

 we read of historical events, occurring in distant ages before these 

 reforms in the methods of recording time, we are to understand 

 that the dates assigned to them are by no means those which they 

 bore at the time, and in the nation of their occurrence ; but that 

 by the labours of chronologists, the local dates given to them by 

 164 



