CHAP. XI. INTERCALATION. 1.5 



where 1 have introdaced the modern names given 

 them by the Copts, who still use them in preference 

 to the lunar months of the Arabs; and, indeed, the 

 Arabs themselves are frequently guided by the 

 Coptic months in matters relating to agriculture, 

 particularly in Upper Egypt. 



A people who gave any attention to subjects 

 so important to their agricultural pursuits, could 

 not long remain ignorant of the deficiency which 

 even the intercalation of the five days left in the 

 adjustment of tlie calendar ; and though it required 

 a period of 1460 years for the seasons to recede 

 through all the twelve months, and to prove by 

 the deficiency of a whole year the imperfection of 

 this system, yet it would be obvious to them, in the 

 lapse of a very few years, that a perceptible alter- 

 ation had taken place in the relative position of the 

 seasons ; and the most careless observation would 

 show, that in 120 years, having lost a whole month, 

 or thirty days, the rise of the Nile, the time of 

 sowing and reaping, and all the periodical occupa- 

 tions of the peasant, no longer coincided with the 

 same month. They therefore added a quarter day 

 to remedy this defect, by making every fourth year 

 to consist of 366 days; which, though still subject 

 to a slight error, was a sufficiently accurate ap- 

 proximation ; and, indeed, some modern astrono- 

 mers are of opinion, that instead of exceeding the 

 solar year, the length of the sidereal, computed 

 from one heliacal rising of the Dog-star to another, 

 accorded exactly in that latitude (in consequence 

 of a certain concurrence in the positions of the 



