moon are again, in reference to the earth, at
the same points of the heavens as they were
nineteen years before. This period of nineteen
years was called the cycle of Meton. The
Greeks, who received this information with
enthusiasm, wrote it in letters of gold on
tables which were placed in their temples,
whence the denomination of Golden Numbers.
The Golden Number, or Prime of our
Prayer-book, also called the Cycle of the
Moon, which retains its place in the Calendar,
indicates the number of the order of
each and every year in the lunar cycle of
nineteen years. Now, the present lunar
cycle having commenced on the first of
January, eighteen hundred and forty-three,
to conclude on the first of January, eighteen
hundred and sixty-two, it follows that we are
in the seventeenth year of this cycle; that is
to say, the Golden Number for eighteen
hundred and fifty-nine is seventeen.

The Epact of any year (derived from
(???????, epaktos, adventitious, something
appended) is the number which gives the age
of the moon on the first of January of that
particular year; it indicates how many days
must be added to the lunar year, in order to
make it finish at the same time as the solar
year. A lunation being twenty-nine days
and a-half, twelve lunations make only three
hundred and fifty-four days. If we suppose
the solar, civil, or legal year to be exactly
three hundred and sixty-five days, it will
follow that the lunar year is eleven days
shorter than the solar year. It hence results,
that if the moon is new at the commencement
of any given year, the Epact will be
eleven the year following, and twenty-two
the third year. For the fourth year, the
Epact should be thirty-three; but as thirty-
three days are equal to the duration of a
lunation plus three days (in round numbers),
thirty days are suppressed for this lunation,
and there remains three for the figure of the
Epact for the fourth year. Consequently, the
Epact increases by eleven days every year,
until it has exceeded twenty-nine, the
number of days in the lunar month. On the
first of January, eighteen hundred and fifty-
seven, the number of the Epact was four; by
adding eleven to this number, we had fifteen
for the Epact of eighteen hundred and fifty-
eight; by adding eleven to this latter figure,
we have twenty-six, which is the number of
the Epact for the present year. It informs
us that we must add twenty-six days to the
lunar year of eighteen hundred and fifty-
eight, in order to make it conclude at the
same time as the solar year, or, in other
words, that on the first of January, eighteen
hundred and fifty-nine, the moon had reached
the twenty-sixth day of her age.

The Dominical Letter (which indicates the
Sunday) was invented for the use of the
perpetual calendars when they were originally
annexed to Roman Catholic prayer-books.
The ordinary year equals fifty-two weeks plus
one day. The name of the day on which it
begins is also the name of the day on which
it concludes: thus, the year eighteen hundred
and fifty-eight began on a Friday and ended
with a Friday; and, consequently, the tenth
of June of one year, for instance, bears the
same name as the ninth of June of the
following year. Such facts as these induced
the possibility of constructing a perpetual
calendar. To effect this (see the tables in
the Church Prayer-book) it is necessary to
substitute for the names of the days of the
week the seven letters A, B, C, D, E, F, and
G, written in their proper order periodically
in succession opposite to the respective dates
of the days of the year. If it happen, as in
eighteen hundred and fifty-nine, for example,
that the year commences by a Saturday, that
day is designated by A throughout the whole
year; the Sunday by B; the Monday by C;
and so on. The letter which marks the
Sunday throughout the year, is that which is
called the Dominical Letter, from Dominica
Dies, the Lord's Day. For the current year
it is B, as we have just seen. This letter
changes every year, and goes back one step,
because there is, in ordinary years, one day
more than fifty-two weeks. In bissextile
years February has twenty-nine days instead
of twenty-eight, as in ordinary years; it
follows that, in those years, there ought to be
two Dominical Letters, one for January and
February, and another (the next which
precedes in alphabetical order) for the ten
following months. Thus in the bissextile year
eighteen hundred and fifty-six (the last we
had) the two Dominical Letters were F and
E; the letter F marked the Sundays of
January and February, and E those of the
other months, from the first of March to the
thirty-first of December. As the Dominical
Letter goes back one step every ordinary
year, D marked the Sundays of eighteen
hundred and fifty-seven, C those of eighteen
hundred and fifty-eight, and B marks those
of eighteen hundred and fifty-nine. Next
year, eighteen hundred and sixty, is leap-year
again; therefore A will be the Dominical
Letter till the twenty-ninth of February, and
G that for the rest of the year.

After a complete period of seven bissextile
years, or twenty-eight years in all, the days
of the week again recur in the same order
corresponding with the days of the month;
and consequently the Dominical Letters are
periodically reproduced. Thisperiod of twenty-
eight years is what is called the Solar Cycle
or Cycle of the Sun, although it is in no wise
calculated from any real or apparent motion
of the sun. The number of the order of any
year in the Solar Cycle being given, its
Dominical Letter is learned by referring to
the year of the same order in the table of the
twenty-eight years of any preceding cycle.
The Solar Cycle is made to set out from the
year nine before the Christian era. In order
to find the date of the cycle for any year, it