, and is not veiled under any mystic
expression; the number is given as it stands--2,300. But 2,300 solar
years is an exact number, not only of lunations, but also of
"anomalistic" months. The "anomalistic month" is the time occupied by
the moon in travelling from its perigee, that is its point of nearest
approach to the earth, round to its perigee again. For the moon's orbit
round the earth is not circular, but decidedly elliptical; the moon
being 31,000 miles nearer to us at perigee than it is at apogee, its
point of greatest distance. But it moves more rapidly when near perigee
than when near apogee, so that its motion differs considerably from
perfect uniformity.

But the period in which the moon travels from her perigee round to
perigee again is 27 days, 13 hours, 18 minutes, 37 seconds, and there
are in 2,300 solar years almost exactly 30,487 such periods or
anomalistic months, which amount to 840,057 days, 2 hours.

If we take the mean of these three periods, that is to say 840,057 days,
as being the cycle, it brings into harmony the day, the anomalistic
month, the ordinary month, and the solar year. It is from this point of
view the most perfect cycle known.

Dr. H. Grattan Guinness[343:1] has shown what a beautifully simple and
accurate calendar could have been constructed on the basis of this
period of 2,300 years; thus:--

2,300 solar years contain 28,447 synodic months, of which 847
are intercalary, or epact months. 2,300 years are 840,057
days:

Days.
27,600 {13,800 non-intercalary mths. of 29 d. each = 400,200
{13,800 " " " " 30 " = 414,000
847 {423 intercalary months of 30 days each = 12,690
{424 " " " 31 " " = 13,144
23 days additional for the 23 centuries = 23
-------
840,057

The Jewish calendar on this system would have consisted of ordinary
months, alternately 29 and 30 days in length. The intercalary months
would have contained alternately 30 or 31 days, and once in every
century one of the ordinary months would have had an additional day. Or,
what would come to very much the same thing, this extra day might have
been added at every alternate Jubilee.

By combining these two nu