Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 04.djvu/41

CALEDONIAN CANAL. 27 Firth, Cape Wrath, and the llebriiles; the dis- tance between Kinnairil's Head and the Sound of Hull by this route being 500 miles, but by the canal 250, with an average saving of 91o days for sailing vessels. The highest part is Loch Oich, 105 feet above the sea. There are 28 locks, each 170 to 180 feet long, and 40 feet wide, with a rise or lift of water of 8 feet. Eight of the locks, called Xeptune's staircase, occur in suc- cession near the west end of the canal. Begun under Telford, in 1803, the canal was opened in 182.'?. Ship.-, of 500 to 000 tons can pass through. It is chiefly used by fishing-boats and for local traffic, and in the suuuuer season is much frequented by tourists attracted by the picturesque sceneiy and point? of interest on both sides of the canal. CALEDCKNIA SPRINGS. A health resort in Prescott County, Ontiirio, Canada, about 10 miles southwest of Orignal, and 60 miles nearly due west of ilontreal (ilap: Quebec, 5). It is famous for its alkaline springs. CAXEF, or CALFE, Robert (e.1648-1719) . A Boston merchant, who published, in 1700, More Wonders of the Invisible World, a satirical reply to Cotton Mather's Wonders of the Invisi- ble World (1692). His argument against the Avitchcraft persecutions and his attack on Mather called out from the latter's parishioners, in de- fense of their pastor, Some Few Remarks upon a Scandalous Book Against the Government and ilinistri/ of Sew England. Calef's book was also publicly burned at Cambridge by order of In- crease Mather, then president of Harvard Col- lege. CALENDAR (Lat. calendariuin. account- book, interest falling due on the calends, from valendce, calends). The mode of adjusting the months and other divisions of the civil year to the natural or snlar year. The necessity of some division and meas ement of time must have been early felt. Tlie phases or changes of the moon supplied a natural and very obvious mode of dividing and reckoning time, and hence the division into months (q.v. ; see also Week) of 29 or .30 days was, perhaps, the earliest and most universal. But it would soon be observed that, for many pur])oses, the changes of the sea- sons were more serviceable as marks of division; and thus arose the division into years (q.v.), determined by the motions of the sun. It was soon, however, discovered that the year, or larger division, did not contain an exact num- ber of the smaller divisions or months, and that an accoramodatinn was necessary; and various not very dissimilar e.pedients were employed for correcting the error that arose. The ancient Egj-ptians had a year determined bj' the changes of the seasons, without reference to the changes of the moon, and containing r;65 days, divided into twelve months of 30 days each, with five supplementary days at the end of the year. The Jewish year consisted, in the earliest periods, as it still does, of twelve lunar months, a thir- teenth iK'ing from time to time introduced, to accommodate it to the sun and seasons. This was also the case with the ancient Syrians, Macedonians, etc. The .Jewish months have al- ternately 29 and 30 days; and in a cycle of 19 years there are 7 years having the intercalary month, some of these years having also one, and some two days more than others, so that the Vol.. IV,— 3. CALENDAR. length of the year varies from 353 to 385 days. The Greeks, in the most ancient periods, reck- oned according to real lunar months, twelve making a year; and about B.C. 594 Solon intro- duced in -Vthens the mode of reckoning alter- nately 30 and 29 days to the month, accommo- dating this civil year of 354 days to the solar year by occasional introduction of an intercalary month. A change Aas afterwards made, by which three times in 8 years a month of 30 days was intercalated, making the average length of the year 36514 days. See ^tExoxic Cycle. The Romans are said to have had originally a year of 10 months; but in the time of theiV kings they adopted a lunar year of 355 days, divided into 12 months, with an occasional inter- calary mi^nth. Through the ignorance of the priests, who had the charge of this matter, the utmost confusion gradually arose, which Julius Ca;sar remedied (B.C. 46) by the introduction of the Julian Calendar, according to which the year has ordinarily 365 days, and every fourth year is a leap year of 366 days — the length of" the year being thus assumed as 3G514 days, while it is in reality 3(!5 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 46 seconds: or 11 minutes, 14 seconds less. CsEsar gave the months the number of days they still have. .See ILvlexds. So perfect was the Julian style of reckoning that it prevailed generally among Christian na- tions, and remained undisturbed till the accumu- latiou of the remaining error of 11 minutes or so had amounted, in 1582, to 10 complete days, the vernal equinox falling on the 11th instead of the 21st of March, as it did at the time of the Council of Xice, a.d. 325. This shifting of days had caused great disturbances, by unfixing the times of the celebration of Easter, and hence of all the other movable feasts, and ac- cordingly, Pope Gregory XIII., after careful study, with the aid of Clavius, the astronomer, ordained that 10 days should be deducted from the j'Car 1582, by calling what, according to the old calendar, would have been reckoned the 5th of October the loth of October, 1582; and, in order that this displacement might not recur. it was further ordained that everv hundredth year (1800, 1900, 2100, etc.) should not be counted a leap year, excepting everj- fourth hun- dredth, beginning with 2000. In this way the dift'erence between the civil and natural year will not amount to a day in 5000 years. " In Spain, Portugal, and part of Italy, the Pope was exactly obeyed. In France the change took place in the same year, by calling the lOth the 20th of December. In the Low Countries the change was from the 15th December to the 25th; but it was resisted by the Protestant part of the community till the year 1700. The Catho- lic nations, in general, adopted the style or- dained by their sovereign pontiff'; but the Pro- testants were then too much inflamed against Catholicism in all its relations to receive even a purely scientific improvement from such hands. The Lutherans of Germany, Switzer- land, and, as alrea<ly mentioned, of the Low Countries, at length gave way in 1700, when it had become necessary to omit 1 1 instead of 10 days. A bill to this efl"ect had been brought be- fore the Parliament of England in 1585, but does not appear to have gone beyond a second reading in the House of Lords. It was not till