all.
Their New Year's day, which began by being our July 16th, was in the
next year coincident with our July 6th, then in three successive years
it occurred on different days of June, and so on through May, April,
and the preceding months, so that in thirty-two and a half of our
years their New Year's Day has run through all our months and comes
back again to July.

So much for New Year's Days; they are arbitrary selections, and though
the Roman New Year's Day, or January 1st, has been precisely defined
and fixed by the determination by astronomers of the position of the
earth on that day in its revolution around the sun, yet the original
selection of January 1st for the beginning of the year seems to have
been merely the result of previous errors and negligence in attempting
to fix the winter solstice (which now comes out as December 22nd).
This is the day when the sun is lowest and the day shortest; after it
has passed the sun appears gradually to acquire a new power, and
increases the duration of his stay above the horizon until the longest
day is reached--the summer solstice (June 21st). Julius Caesar took
January 1st for New Year's Day as being the first day of a month
nearest to the winter solstice. The ancient Greeks regarded the
beginning of September as "New Year."

Were mankind content with the measure of time by the completion of a
cycle of revolution of the earth around the sun--that is the year--and
by the revolution of the earth on its own axis--that is the day or
day-night ([Greek: nychthemeron]) of the Greeks--the notation of time
and of seasons would be comparatively simple. No one seems to know why
or when the day was first divided into twenty-four hours, nor why
sixty minutes were taken in the hour and sixty seconds in the minute.
The ancient astronomers of Egypt and China, and their beliefs in
mystical numbers, have to do with the first choosing of these
intervals in unrecorded ages of antiquity (as much as 2000 or 3000
B.C.). The seven days of the week correspond to the five planets known
to the ancients, with the addition of the sun and the moon. But the
Greeks made three weeks of ten days each in a month. The true
year--the exact period of a complete revolution of the earth around
the sun--is 365 days 5 hours 18 minutes and 46 seconds. It was
measured with a fair amount of accuracy by very ancient races of men,
who fixed the position of the rising sun at the longest day by
erecting big stones,