terms of the imperial statute. Indeed, so far as the essentials are concerned, it is current at the present time. Having thrown off the British yoke they became the United States (virtually as frons 4th July, 1776), and it was considered necessary to speak not only of Independence Day, but also of the year thereof. Accordingly for a long time the presidential proclamations have run as having been signed at the city of Washington, the day, month, and year A.D., and the Independence of the United States, such and such a year. The religious festivals of the Anglican and Roman Communions do not differ from the diets observed elsewhere in Christendom.[1] The Dog Days, as indicative of torrid periods, are reckoned as between 25th July and 5th September. The so-called New World, many think, should be styled the Older World, as there are traces of prehistoric man; and very recently calculations have been furnished to the Niagara commissioners to the effect that the Falls are 31,000 years old. The basis of calculation having been the real rate of recession in the Falls during the last half century, the figures may not be far amiss.
68. Year of our Lord.—It is highly probable that Charles III. of Germany was the first monarch to use the phrase in Western Europe, which he did in an edict during the year 879.
69. Year of Light is a Masonic term. The craft claims to have had a uniform community from the building of the temple of temples, which Ideler, the Prussian astronomer, contended really began an era in ancient chronology, viz., May (i.e., about Mid-spring), B.C. 1015. But the Masons
- ↑ See also section 140 infra, wherein a new calendar which has been suggested is explained.
