nt, the mistake was
discovered in due time and a partial remedy was applied through the
interpolation of a "little month" of five days between the end of the
twelfth month and the new year. This nearly but not quite remedied
the matter. What it obviously failed to do was to take account of that
additional quarter of a day which really rounds out the actual year.

It would have been a vastly convenient thing for humanity had it chanced
that the earth had so accommodated its rotary motion with its speed
of transit about the sun as to make its annual flight in precisely 360
days. Twelve lunar months of thirty days each would then have coincided
exactly with the solar year, and most of the complexities of the
calendar, which have so puzzled historical students, would have been
avoided; but, on the other hand, perhaps this very simplicity would
have proved detrimental to astronomical science by preventing men from
searching the heavens as carefully as they have done. Be that as it may,
the complexity exists. The actual year of three hundred and sixty-five
and (about) one-quarter days cannot be divided evenly into months,
and some such expedient as the intercalation of days here and there is
essential, else the calendar will become absolutely out of harmony with
the seasons.

In the case of the Egyptians, the attempt at adjustment was made, as
just noted, by the introduction of the five days, constituting what the
Egyptians themselves termed "the five days over and above the year."
These so-called epagomenal days were undoubtedly introduced at a very
early period. Maspero holds that they were in use before the first
Thinite dynasty, citing in evidence the fact that the legend of Osiris
explains these days as having been created by the god Thot in order
to permit Nuit to give birth to all her children; this expedient being
necessary to overcome a ban which had been pronounced against Nuit,
according to which she could not give birth to children on any day of
the year. But, of course, the five additional days do not suffice fully
to rectify the calendar. There remains the additional quarter of a day
to be accounted for. This, of course, amounts to a full day every fourth
year. We shall see that later Alexandrian science hit upon the expedient
of adding a day to every fourth year; an expedient which the Julian
calendar adopted and which still gives us our familiar leap-year. But,
unfortunately, the ancient Egyptian failed to re