PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 29 



Mr. J. B. HiLGARD made remarks 



ON A PROPOSED REFORMATION OF THE GREGORIAN CALENDAR : 



in a Bill recently introduced in the Congress of the United States. 

 It proposes to make the year commence at the winter solstice, 

 April at the vernal equinox, July at the summer solstice, and 

 October at the autumnal equinox. Thus the arrangement of 

 the civil year would correspond with these four astronomical 

 epochs. 



Mr. Coffin remarked that the year commencing on the 1st of 

 January, with months of different lengths and an intercalary day 

 in February each fourth year, had come down to us from Julius 

 Cffisar. In the time of Augustus one day taken from some other 

 month was added to August, in compliment to the reigning Em- 

 peror. An important change was made in 1582, under the au- 

 thority of Pope Gregory XIII., making the civil year more nearly 

 coincident with the tropical year, and, by dropping 10 days in 

 October of that year, restoring the vernal equinox to the 21st of 

 March, its date in the year 325, the time of the Council of Nice, 

 whose regulation of the ecclesiastical calendar depended on that 

 day. The inconveniences, difficulties, and delays in effecting 

 that change are well known. It was not adopted in Great 

 Britain and the American Colonies until towards the middle of 

 the last century. In Russia at the present day the Old Style, 

 as it is called, is still retained. 



From the different modes of reckoning the year in different 

 countries and at different periods, astronomers adopt the day as 

 the unit, and by giving the Julian day of the commencement of 

 each year, whatever its Style, are able to determine the dates of 

 past phenomena or chronology. 



The alteration proposed not only changes the time of the com- 

 mencement of each month, but involves also other changes in 

 some of them. The difficulties of the past would follow any new 

 change, and the one proposed presents too limited advantages to 

 compensate for them. 



The true vernal equinox occurs at present on the 20th of 

 March in Washington time, also in European time except in 

 each year preceding a leap year. At the beginning of the next 

 century it will be restored to the 21st. 



