Dr. H. Chatley's Lecture to Members of B.W.A.
BW.A. members spent an interesting afternoon on Thursday, when Dr. H. Chatley gave a lecture on the "Romance of the Calendar" at Aszociation headquarters.
Dr. Chatley began his lecture by {stating that an ordinary calendar aid not, on the face of it, present much opportunity for romance. All the same, he added, all calendars, in-@ividually, form an astonishing complex of legend. history, astronomy. superstition and custom, which can really be described as romantic, and in any case, Is always Interesting.
Speaking of the Western calendar, [he went on to show how it could be traced back to perhaps '7,000 years B.C, when agriculture originated Prior to this, said Dr. Chatley. nomads and hunters had used the rough calculation of 12 moons of 30 days each, which, in spite of its extreme inaccuracy, has indirectly survived in the 360 degrees of the circle, and fu some other forms.
According to very ancient Egyptian legends, which are to a certain extent supported by archaeoloxteal research, said the speaker, agriculture commenced in Northern Palestine between the ninth and Afth millenia [before Christ, associated with the name of a woman who was later deified as Isis in Egypt, Demeter in JGreece, and Ceres in' Rome. Wer paine ti survives In the dally Agriculture Develops Dr. Chatley went on to. tell "his audience how, some time during the faith' miltenium B.C, agriculture in Eeyot became an exact art and was controlled by the annual flooding of the Nile. It was observed at the time the Nile began to rise, the star now known as Sirius appeared in the morning before sunrise, and this Jobservation, which legend was also associated with the goddess Tels. ed to the discovery of a year of 365 Jdays, which was uted in Exyptin practice right up to. the time of JJutlus Caesar in the first century B.C. Julius Caesar. with the advice Jot an' Egyptian astronomer, founded [the present calendar. with a year of 365% days. which is very nearly correct. the 16th century. said the speak-Jer, Pope Gregory XIII caused 2 smal Jcorrection to be made, dropping 10 Jdays, and in the 18th' century the Jsame change was made in Enaland. by dropping 11 days, and this. the JGregorian calendar." which drops three Leap Year days in 400 years. is now almost universally' employed. Tt has a small error of about one [day in 4,000 years.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.