1-57 

 -7. 



CONTENTS. 



COMMON THINGS THE ALMANACK. 



PAGE 



CHAP. I. 1. The Almanack. 2. The Calendar. 3. The contents 

 of an Almanack Predictions. 4. Its , prophetic character 

 abused. 5. Saints' Days. 6. Date of the* year. 7. Christian 

 era. 8. Discrepancy between the reckoning of Astronomers and 

 Chronologists. 9. When a century begins and ends. 10. Com- 

 mencement and duration of the Seasons. 11. Beginning of the 

 year. 12. Fixed and moveable Feasts. 13. Easter. 14. Not 

 dependent on the phases of the Moon. 15. By what rule deter- 

 mined. 16. Rule not generally understood. 17. Equinox. 

 18. Ecclesiastical Moon. 19. Age of the Moon. 20. Full Moon. 

 21. Error in the expression of the rule. 22. Lunar cycle. 



23. Average length of civil and astronomical cycles agree. 



24. Fictitious moon never far distant from real moon. 25. 

 Golden Number. 26. Epact. 27. Used to determine the date 

 of Easter. 28. Amount of separation of fictitious from real 

 moon. 29. Limits of variation of date of Easter. 30. Earliest 

 possible. 31. Latest possible. 32. Paschal Moon ... 1 



CHAP. II. 33. Paschal moon sometimes gives a different Easter from 

 real moon. 34. Occasion of public controversies. 35. Professor 

 De Morgan points out error in Act of Parliament. 36. Other 

 moveable Feasts. <37. Extract from De Morgan's Book of 

 Almanacks. 38. Whit-Sunday. 39. The Indiction. 40. Solar 

 Cycle. 41. To find the year of the current solar cycle. 

 42. Dominical or Sunday Letter. 43. How affected by Leap- 

 year. 44. Sunday Letter ; of the year 1 A.D. 45. To find 

 Sunday Letter for any year. 46. Eras. 47. Julian Period. 

 48. Its commencement determined. 49. Its use in chronology. 

 50. Contents of the Calendar. 51. Aspect of the Heavens. 

 52. Times of rising and setting of celestial bodies. 53. Distor- 

 tion produced by the atmosphere. 54. Other effects. 55. True 

 and apparent sunrise. 56. The sun seen before it rises. 



57. Conventional meaning of the terms sunrise and sunset. 



58. Refraction. 59. The Equinoxes 60. Day and night rarely 



of the same length. 61. How modified by refraction . .17 



CHAP. III. 62. Noon. 63. Clock time and sun time. 64. Decli- 

 nation of s\m. 65. Tropics. 66. Solstices. 67. Dog days. 

 68. Why Midsummer is not the hottest season. 69. Unequal 

 intervals between the equinoxes. 70. Signs of the Zodiac. 

 71. Their designations. 72. Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn. 



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