35ft 
end of 1989 cut the ecliptic in & f>* 29' IV'. 
in the same maimer our author determines 
that the mean place of the solstitial colure is 
&L 28' 46' / , and, as it is at right angles 
with the other, he concludes that it is rightly 
drawn. And hence he infers that the car- 
dinal points, in the interval hetween that 
expedition and the year 1689, have receded 
from those colures Is. 6 n 29'; which, allowing 
72 years to a degree, amounts to 2627 
years; and these counted backwards, as 
above, will place the Argonautic expedition 
43 years after the death of Solomon. Our 
author has, by other methods also of a simi- 
lar nature, established this epoch, and re- 
duced the age of the world 500 years. 
The use of chronolog //. — The divisions of 
time which are considered in chronology, 
relate either to the different methods of com- 
puting days, months, and years, or to the 
remarkable amas or epochal from which any 
year receives its name, and by means of 
which the date of any event is fixed. 
Days have been very differently terminat- 
ed and divided by different people in differ- 
ent ages, which it is of some importance to 
a reader 'of history to be acquainted with. 
I lie antient Babylonians, Persians, Syrians, 
and most other eastern nations, with the 
present inhabitants of the Balearic islands, 
Greeks, began their day with the sun’s rising. 
The antient Athenians and Jews, with the 
Austrians, Bohemians, Marcomanni, Sile- 
sians, modern Italians, and Chinese, reckon 
from tiie sun’s setting; the antient Umbri 
and Arabians, with the modern astronomers, 
from noon ; and the Egyptians and Romans, 
with the modern English, French, Dutch, 
Germans, Spaniards, and Portuguese, from 
midnight. 
j The Jews, Romans, and most other an- 
tient nations, divided the day into twelve 
hours, and the night into four watches. But 
the custom which prevails in this western 
part of the world at present is, to divide the 
day into 24 equal portions : only with some 
the 24 are divided into twice 1 2 hours ; 
whereas others, particularly the Italians, Bo- 
hemians, and Poles, count" 24 hours without 
interruption. 
Different people have made their years to 
begin at different times, and have used a va- 
riety of methods to give names to them, and 
distinguish th'em from one another. 
The Jews began the year for civil purposes 
in the month of Tizri, which answers to our 
September ; but for ecclesiastical purposes 
with AV.sftrtj Which answers to our April, at 
which time they kept the passover. The 
Athenians began the .year with the month 
Hecatombceon, which began with the first 
new moon after the summer solstice. The 
Romans had at first only ten months in their 
year, 'which ended with December; but Nu- 
'tna added January and February. At pre- 
sent there are in Rome two wavs of reckon- 
ing the year. One begins at Christmas, on 
account of the nativity of our Saviour; and 
the notaries of Rome use this date, prefixing 
to their deeds, a nativitate: and the other at 
March, on account of the incarnation of 
Christ, and therefore the pope’s bulls are 
dated anno incur nutionis. The antient 
French historians began the year at the 
death of St. Martin, who died in the year 
4 )1 or 402; and they did not begin in France 
to reckon the year from January till 1564, by 
CHRONOLOGY. 
virtue of an ordinance of Charles IX. Be- 
lore that time they began the day next after 
Easter, about the 25th of March. In Eng- 
land, also, till ot late, we had two beginnings 
ot the year, one in January, and the other oil 
March 25; but by act of parliamenfin 1752, 
the first day in January was appointed to be 
the beginning of the year for all purposes. 
Most of the eastern nations distinguish the 
year by the reigns of their princes. The 
Greeks also had no better method, giving 
names to them from the magistrates who 
presided in them, as in Athens from the Ai- 
chons. The Romans also named the year 
by the consuls ; and it was a long time be- 
fore any people thought of giving names to 
the years from any particular aira or remark- 
able event. But at length the Greeks reck- 
oned from the institution of the Olympic 
games, and the Romans from the building of 
Home. lhey did not, however, begin 
to make these computations till a number 
of years had elapsed since those events 
could not be computed, with exactness, and 
therefore they have greatly antedated them. 
About A. D. 360, the Christians began to 
reckon the years from the birth of Christ, 
but not time enough to enable the cl.rono- 
logel's of that age to fix the true time of that 
event. 
1 he Greeks distributed their years into 
systems of four, calling them Olympiads, 
from the return ot t lie Olympic games every 
four years. And the Romans sometimes 
reckoned by lustra, or periods of five years. 
I he greatest difficulty in chronology has 
been, to accommodate "the two methods of 
computing time by the course of the moon 
and that of the sun, to each other ; then ear- 
est division of the year by months being 
twelve, and yet twelve lunar months falling 
eleven days short of a complete year. This 
gave birth to many cycles in use among the 
antients, the principal of which are as follows: 
It. appears from the relation which Hero- 
dotus has given of the interview between 
Solon and Croesus, that, in the time of Solon, 
and probably that of Herodotus also, it was 
the custom with the Greeks to add, or, as it 
is termed, to intercalate, a month every other 
year; but as this was evidently too much, 
they probably rectified it, by omitting the 
intercalation whenever they observed, by 
comparing the seasons of the year with their 
annual festivals, that they ought to do it. 
if, for instance, the first fruits 'of any kind 
were to be carried in procession on any par- 
ticular day of a month, they would see the 
necessity of intercalating a month, if, accord- 
ing to their usual reckoning, those fruits 
were not then ripe, or they would omit the 
intercalation if they were ready. And had 
no other view interposed, their reckoning 
could never have erred far from the truth. 
But it being sometimes the interest of the 
chief magistrates to lengthen or shorten a 
year, for the purposes of ambition, every 
other consideration was often sacrificed to it", 
and the greatest confusion was introduced 
into their computations. Finding them- 
selves, therefore, under a necessity of having 
some certain rule of computation, they first 
adopted four years, in which tl^ey intercalat- , 
ed only one month. But this producing' an 
error of fourteen days in the whole cycle, 
they invented the period of eight years, in 
which they intercalated three months ; in 
........ .,co .... 1 -alcw ui one way ana 
fourteen hours, and therefore this cycle, con- 
tinued in use much longer than either of the 
preceding. 
But the most perfect of these cycles was 
that which was called the .Metonic, from Me- 
lon, an Athenian astronomer, who invented 
it. it consisted of nineteen years, in which 
seven months were intercalated. T his brdught 
the two methods to so near an agreement 
that after the expiration of tiie period, not 
only do the new and full moons return on the 
same day ot the year, but very nearly on the 
same hour of the day. This cvcle was adopt- 
ed by the Christians at the council of Nice, 
for the purpose of settling the time for keep- 
ing Easier, and other moveable feasts. This 
period, however, falling short of nineteen 
years almost an hour aiid a half, it has come 
to pass that the new and full moons in the 
heavens have anticipated the new and full 
moons in the calendar of the book of Com- 
mon Prayer four days and a half. These 
last are called calendar nccs moons, to distin- 
guish them from the true new moons in the 
heavens. 
It has not been without difficulty and varie- 
ty’ that the computation by years has been ac- 
commodated to that by days; since a year does 
not consist of any even number of days, but 
of 365 days, 5 minutes, and 49 seconds "nearly. 
It will appear from what has been observed, 
that so long as mankind computed chiefly by 
months, it was not of much consequence to 
determine with exactness the number of days 
in the year; and this method sufficiently an- 
swered every , civil and religious purpose. 
But the Egyptians, and other nations addict- 
ed to astronomy, were not satisfied with the 
method of computing by lunar months, the 
days ot which varied so very much fro n one 
another in different years." They therefore 
made the year the standard; and dividing 
that into days, made use of months only as 
a commodious intermediate division; and, 
without regard to the course of the moon, 
distributed the days of the year into twelve 
parts, as nearly equal as they conveniently 
could. By this means the same day of the 
month would fall on the same part of the 
sun’s annual revolution, and therefore would, 
more exactly correspond to the seasons of 
the year. The Mexicans divided their year 
into eighteen parts. 
The Egyptians, as also the Chaldeans and 
Assyrians, reckoned at first 360 days to the 
year, but afterwards 365. The consequence 
ot this u'as, that the beginning of their year 
would go back through all the season, though 
slowly; namely, at the rate of about six 
hours every year. Of this form too were 
the years which took their date from the 
reign of Nabonassar of Babylon, Yesdigerd 
of Persia, and the Seleucida- of Syria. 
It must be observed, however, that the 
people who reckoned their year from these 
epochas, namely, the Egyptians, Persians, 
and Jews, as also the Arabians, had a differ- 
ent and more fixed form of the year for as- 
tronomical purposes; but as no use was made 
of it in civil history, the account of it is omit- 
ted in this place. , 
The inconvenience attending the form of 
the year above-mentioned, was in a great 
measure remedied by the Romans in the 
time ot Julius Caesar, who added one day 
every fourth year, which (from . the place 
