YEA 
YAR 
hut when the top-sails are stowed, then the 
top-sail-sheets will top them. 
Yard-arm is that half of the yard that is 
on either side of the mast, when it lies athwart 
the ship. 
YARN, wool or flax spun into thread, 
of which they weave cloth. 
Yarn is ordered after the following manner: 
After it has been spun upon spindles, spools, 
or the like, they reel it 'upon reels, which are 
hardly two feet in length, and have but two 
contrary cross-bars, being the best, and the 
least liable to ravelling. In reeling of fine 
yarn, the better to keep it from ravelling, you 
must, as ii is reeled, with a tye-band of big 
twist, divide the slipping orskain into several 
leys, allowing to every ley eighty threads, 
and twenty leys to every slipping, if the yarn 
is very line ; otherwise less of both kinds. 
The yarn being spun, reeled, and in the slip- 
pings, the next thing is to scour it. In order 
to fetch out the spots, it should be laid in luke- 
warm water for three or four days, each day 
shifting it once, wringing it out, and laying it 
in another water of the same nature : then 
carry it to a well or brook, and rinse it till 
nothing comes from it but pure clean water: 
that done, take a bucking-tub, and cover the 
bottom with very fine ashen ashes ; and then 
having opened and spread the slippings, lay 
them on those ashes, and put more ashes 
above, and lay in more slippings, covering 
them with ashes as before ; and thus lay one 
upon another, till all the yarn is put in: af- 
terwards cover up the uppermost yarn with a 
bucking cloth, and, in proportion to the size 
of the tub, lay in it a peck or two more of 
ashes: this done, pour upon the uppermost 
cloth a great deal of warm water, till the tub 
can receive no more, and let it stand so all 
night. Next morning you are to set a kettle 
of clean water on the fire ; and when it is 
warm, pull out the spiggot of the bucking 
tub, to let the water run out of it, into ano- 
ther clean vessel ; as the bucking tub wastes, 
fill it up again with the warm water on the 
fire : and as the water on the fire wastes, so 
likewise fill that up with the lye that comes 
from the bucking-tub; ever observing to 
make the lye hotter and hotter, till it boils : 
then you must, as before, ply it with the boil- 
ing lye at least four hours together, which is 
called the driving of a buck of yarn. 
All this being done, for the whitening of it, 
you must take off the bucking cloth ; then 
putting the yarn with the lye-ashes into large 
tubs, with your hands labour the yarn, ashes, 
and lye, pretty well together ; afterwards car- 
ry it to a well, or river, and rinse it clean ; 
then hang it upon poles in the air all day, and 
in the evening take the slippings down, and 
lay them in water all night ; the next day hang 
them up again, and throw water upon them 
as they dry, observing to turn that side outer- 
most which whitens slowest. After having 
done this for a week together, put all the yarn 
again into a bucking-tub, without ashes, co- 
vering it as before with a bucking cloth ; lay 
thereon good store of fresh ashes, and drive 
that buck, as before, with very strong boiling 
lye, for half a day, or more ; then take it out, 
and rinse it, hanging it up, as before, in the 
day-time, to dry, and laying it in water at 
night, another week : lastly, wash it over in 
fair water, and so dry it up. Your yarn be- 
ing thus scoured and whitened, wind it up 
into round balls of a moderate size, 
a 
YEA 
YEAR, in the full extent of the word, is a 
system or cycle of several months, usually 
12. Others define year, in the general, a 
period or space of time, measured out by the 
revolution of some celestial body in its orbit. 
Thus, the time in which the fixed stars make 
a revolution, is called the great year ; and 
the times in which Jupiter, Saturn, the Sun, 
Moon, &c. complete their courses, and return 
to the same point of the zodiac, are respec- 
tively called the years of Jupiter and Saturn, 
-and the solar and lunar years, &c. 
As year denoted originally a revolution, 
and was not limited to that ot the Sun ; ac- 
cordingly we find by the oldest accounts, 
that people have, at different times, expressed 
other revolutions by it, particularly that of 
the Moon ; and consequently that the years 
of some accounts, are to be reckoned only 
months, and sometimes periods of 2, or 3, or 
4 months. This will help us greatly in un- 
derstanding the accounts that certain nations 
give of their own antiquity, and perhaps of 
the age of men. We read expressly, in seve- 
ral of the old Greek writers, that the Egyp- 
tian year, at one period, was only a month ; 
and we are farther told that at other periods it 
was three months, or four months ; and it is 
probable that tire children of Israel followed 
the Egpptian account of their years. 'The 
Egyptians talked, almost 2000 years ago, of 
having accounts of events 48,000 years dis- 
tance. A great deal must be allowed to fal- 
lacy, on the above account ; but beside this, 
the Egyptians had, in the time of the Greeks, 
the same ambition which the Chinese have at 
present; and wanted to pass themselves upon 
that people, as these do upon us, for the old- 
est inhabitants of the earth. They had re- 
course also to the same means; and both the 
present and the early impostors 'have pre- 
tended to antient observations of the heavenly 
bodies, and recounted eclipses in particular, 
to vouch for the truth of their accounts. t 
Since the time in which the solar year, or 
period of the earth’s revolution round the 
sun, has been received, we may account with 
certainty ; but for those remote ages, in 
which we do not know with certainty what is 
meant by the term year, it is impossible to 
form any conjecture of the duration of time 
in the accounts. The Babylonians pretend 
to an antiquity of the same romantic kind ; 
they talk of 47,000 years in which they had 
kept observations ; but w 7 e may judge of 
these as of the others, and of the observations 
as of the years. The Egyptians speak of the 
stars having four times altered their courses 
in that period which they claim for their his- 
tory, and that the Sun set twice in the east. 
They were not such perfect astronomers, but, 
after a roundabout voyage, they might per- 
haps mistake the east for the west when they 
came in. 
Year, or solar year, properly, and by 
way of eminence so called, is the space of 
time in which the sun moves through the 
twelve signs of the ecliptic. This, by the 
observations of the best modern astronomers, 
contains 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, 48 
seconds ; the quantity assumed by the au thors 
of the Gregorian calendar is 365 days, 5 
hours, 49 minutes. But in the civil or popu- 
lar account, this year contains only 36 5 days ; 
except every fourth year, which contains 
366. 
The vicissitude of seasons seems to have 
017 
given occasion to the first institution of the 
year. Man, naturally curious to know the 
cause of that diversity, soon found it was the 
proximity and distance of the sun ; and there- 
fore gave the name year to the space of time 
in which that luminary performed his whole 
course, by returning to the same point of his 
orbit. According to the accuracy in their 
observations, the year of some nations was 
more perfect than that of others, but none of 
them quite exact, nor whose parts did not 
shift with regard to the parts of the sun’s 
course. 
According to Herodotus, it was the Egyp- 
tians who tirst formed the year, making it to 
contain 360 days, which they subdivided into 
12 months, of 30 days each. Mercury Tris- 
megistus added five days more to the account. 
And on this footing it is said that Thales in- 
stituted the year among the G reeks ; though 
that form of the year did not hold throughout 
all Greece. Also, the Jewish, Syrian, Ro- 
man, Persian, Ethiopic, Arabic, &c. years,., 
were all different. In fact, considering the 
imperfect state of astronomy in those ages, 
it is no wonder that different, people should 
disagree in the calculation ot the sun’s course. 
We are even assured, that the Egyptian year 
itself was at first very different from that now 
represented. 
The solar year is either astronomical or- 
civil. 
The astronomical solar year, is that which-* 
is determined precisely by astronomical ob- 
servations ; and is- of two kinds, .tropical, and- 
sidereal. or astral,. 
Tropical, or natural year, is the time the* 
sun takes in passing through the zodiac ; 
which, . as before observed, is 365 days, 5 * 
hours, 48 minutes, 48 seconds ; or 365 days,. 
5 hours, 49 minutes. This is the only proper 
or natural year, beeause it always keeps the 
same seasons to the same months. 
Sidereal or astral year, is the space of time 
the sun takes in passing from any fixed star, 
till his return to it again. This consists of 
365 days, 6 hours, 9 minutes, 17 seconds; 
being 20 minutes, 29 seconds, longer than the 
true solar year. 
Lunar year, is the space of twelve lunar - 
months. Hence, from the two kinds of sy- 
nodical lunar months, there arise two kinds 
of lunar years; the one astronomical, the- 
other civil. 
Lunar astronomical year, consists of twelve 
lunar synodical months; and therefore con- 
tains 35 4< days,. 3 .hours, 28 minutes, 38 se- 
conds, and is therefore 10 days, 21 hours,. 
0 minutes, 10 seconds, shorter than the solar 
year; a difference which is the foundation of * 
the epact. 
Lunar civil year, is either common or em- 
bolism fo. 
The common lunar year consists of twrelve 
lunar civil months, and therefore contains- 
354 days. And 
The embolismic or intercalary lunar year, 
consists of 13 lunar civil months, and there- 
fore contains 384 days. 
Thus far we have considered years and 
months,, with regard to astronomical princi- 
ples, upon which the division is founded. 
By this, the various forms of civil years that 
have formerly obtained, or that do still ob- 
tain, in different nations, are to be examined. 
Civil year, is that form of year which every 
nation has contrived or adopted, for compute 
