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E. WALTER MAUNDEK, ESQ., F.R.A.S,^ ON 



second is the method of ancient and modern astronomers of Julius 

 Cspsar and Pope Gregory, a method highly technical, involving 

 constant alteration and incapable of attaining accuracy or finality, 

 because the problem it seeks to solve involves the relation of two 

 mathematical quantities by nature incommensurable. 



The method of Moses is that of watching the state of the crops, 

 and looking out for the first appearance of the new moon in the 

 spring of the year. Time is measured by revolutions of the sun, 

 which are determined by direct personal observation of the return 

 of the spring. Every spring the ripening of the barley marks the 

 commencement of a new year. The first new moon that appears 

 after the barley is ripe makes the day on which it appears the first 

 day of the first month of the new year. The period of the revolution 

 of the moon is 29 J days. Each month is therefore a natural period 

 of either 29 or 30 days. On the 30th day of the month in which the 

 barley ripens a sharp lookout is kept. If the moon appears on that 

 day, it is the first day of the first month of the new year, and the 

 previous month has only 29 days. If the moon does not appear on 

 that day it is the 30th day of the old month, and the following day 

 is the first day of the first month of the new year. All these facts 

 were obtained by direct observation by the naked eye. The Biblical 

 year is the luni-solar year. Moses measures time by the revolutions 

 of the sun ; but the years of the moon are pinned down to the years 

 of the sun. Having ascertained the first day of the first month of 

 the new year by direct observation, all the feasts are regulated by 

 direct reference to that day, the 1st Nisan. The Passover was killed 

 on the 14th of Nisan. Pentecost, the Feast of Weeks, was held 

 exactly seven weeks later, and the Feast of Tabernacles on the first 

 dav of the seventh month of the year. The resulting system was 

 perfect and self-adjusting. It required neither periodic correction 

 nor intercalation. 



The second method of constructing a calendar is the modern 

 scientific method of astronomical calculation. Compared with the 

 Biblical method it is intricate, inexact, and incapable of arriving at 

 a result which shall be at once final and correct. It is therefore in 

 need of periodic correction, which as, is well known, has frequently 

 had to be applied. 



Mrs. Walteii Maunder desired to make two remarks with regard 

 to the 1st of Tishri. The book of Nehemiah puts the Chisleu of the 



