AND Treasury of Facts, STATISTICAL, FINANCIAL, AND POLITICAL, FOR THE YEAR 1885. COMPILED FROM OFFICIAL SOURCES. EDITED BY AINSWORTH R. SPOFFORD, LIBRARIAN OF CONGRESS. NEW YORK AND WASHINGTON: 1885. 1885. mar. 11, Bright Fund! EIGHTH ANNUAL PUBLICATION. COPYRIGHT, 1884, BY AINSWORTH R. SPOFFORD. THE AMERICAN ALMANAC AND TREASURY OF FACTS Is published in two editions: 1. Popular Edition, handsome paper cover. Price 35 cents. 2. Library Edition, with 100 additional pages; elegantly bound in full scarlet cloth. Price, $1.50. Copies of the former issues, 1878, 1879, 1881, 1882, 1883, and 1884, may be had, The American Almanac for 1880 is out of print. Lunar Cycle, or Golden Number. 5 Mohammedan Era 1302-3 14 Byzantine Era. 7393-4 Roman Indiction.. 13 Independence of the United States. 109-110 The Solar Cycle embraces a period of 28 years. ECLIPSES IN THE YEAR 1885. 19 years. There will be four eclipses in the year 1885, two of the Sun and two of the Moon. 1. Annular eclipse of the Sun, March 16. This partial eclipse through the United States generally, will be visible in its annular phase in the northwest, where the path of the Annular crosses our northern boundary in longitude 105 degrees west from Greenwich. The annular phase will last only about fifty seconds. It will be visible at Washington as a partial eclipse. 2. A partial Eclipse of the Moon on March 30, invisible in the United States. 3. A total Eclipse of the Sun, September 8, invisible in the United States. 4. A partial Eclipse of the Moon, September 23-24, visible at Washington; also on the Atlantic Ocean, in North and South America, and the Pacific Ocean, Moon enters shadow September 24 at 1h. 6m. A.M., Washington mean time. Middle of the eclipse, 2h. 40m. Moon leaves shadow 4h. 13m. A.M. THE NEW STANDARD TIME. In 1884, by general agreement and partial legislation, four standard meridians were adopted within the United States, by which railway trains are run and local time regulated. These meridians are 15 degrees, or 900 miles, apart, there being a difference of just one hour in time from one meridian to another, as there are 360° in the earth's circumference, which divided by 24 hours gives 15 degrees to an hour. The Eastern meridian, 75° W. from Greenwich, passes 4 minutes west of New York City. The Central meridian, 90° W. longitude. passes through New Orleans and St. Louis. The Mountain standard meridian, 105 W. long., passes near Pike's Peak, Rocky Mountains. The Pacific meridian, 120° W. long., is near the coast, San Francisco being 91⁄2 m. west of it. The figures in these calendar-pages will be correct for the various standard meridians; for places east of any meridian, and within 7% degrees of it, one minute of time for each quarter of a degree of longitude (= 15 miles nearly), or 4 minutes for each degree, must be subtracted from the almanac figures. For a place west of any meridian, and within 7% degrees of it, add one minute for each quarter of a degree to the almanac figures. Any United States map gives the distances in longitude of most places from the several standard meridians, suf ficiently near to make practical application of the rule. MORNING STARS. VENUS from January 1 to May 4. MARS from February 11 to December 3. EVENING STARS. VENUS from May 4 to December 31. JUPITER from January 1 to September 8, 誓 PERPETUAL CALENDAR. For finding the day of the week on which any day of any month falls, (or the day of the month of any given day of the week) in any year before or after Christ, Old Style or New. serted twice, the 46 47 48 48 first number is 52 52 53 54 used when the given date is in 57 58 59 60 EXPLANATION OF THE 1. The days of the different months as given above, fall, in any year, on the weekday found opposite the 28 century (Old or New Style) in which the year occurs, and over the year thereof. 2. Find the year in "Years of the Cen tury; "follow up the column to the day on the same horizontal line with the given cenFind this day tury. under the given month. The figures above it in the same vertical line show the dates of that day during the given month, and the weekdays in the same hori. zontal line to the right or left have their respective dates above them, thus forming the entire calendar for that month and year. EXAMPLE 1.—To find the day of the week for July 4th, 1881. Opposite Century 19, New Style, and over year 81, is Saturday. Under July, Saturday falls in the vertical line under 2, and the second day to the right following, under 4, is Monday, July 4th. EXAMPLE 2.-To find the day of the week on which Columbus discovered America, October 12th, 1492, Old Style. Opposite Century 15, Old Style, and over 92 in black letter (It being leap year,) is Monday. Therefore, October 8th was Monday; and the line of week-days in which Monday falls under October (which is the sixth,) with the days of the month above, constitute the entire Calendar for October, 1492, Old Style, and the 12th, as seen, falls on Friday. EXAMPLE 3.-To find the 1st Tuesday after the ist Monday in November, (Election Day,) 1882. Find 82 in "Years of the Century;" follow up the column to the day on a line with the figure 19 of the "Centuries, New Style:" this will be found to be Sunday. Under November, Sunday is found in the vertical line under 5, of the calendar above, Monday to the right of it under 6, and Tuesday under 7. So the Tuesday after the first Monday, is the 7th. 5 6 12 17 23 34 40 45 88 88 89 90 99 100 100 THE TIME OF HIGH WATER at the places following may be found approximately for each day by adding to or subtracting from the time of high water at New York the hours and minutes annexed. [Corrected at the office of the United States Coast and Geodetical Survey.] EXAMPLE. To ascertain at what hour it will be high tide at Baltimore on the 1st of August, find the time of high water at New York under August 1st, which is 4.24 A.M., then add 10 hours 52 minutes, as found in the table of Tide Constants under Baltimore, and we have 3.16 P.M. as the hour of high water at Baltimore August 1st, 1880. NOTE. The hours of high water in the calendar pages are the morning hours -from midnight to noon-throughout the year, as computed for the U. S. Coast Survey. To find the time of next high water, or the afternoon tide-from noon to midnight-add 12 h. 25 m. in each day. The result will be the proximate hour of evening tide. For low water, add 6 h. 12 m., approximately, to the time of high water. Explanation of the Calendar. THE two natural divisions of time are the day, of 24 hours, representing one revolution of the earth on its axis, and the year, 365 days, approximately representing one revolution of the earth around the sun. The month represents (nearly) the period of the moon's revolution round the earth (about 291 days), while the week is approximately one-fourth of this. By the Julian Calendar, established by Julius Cæsar, 46 B.C., the months were reconstructed; the Roman year, which began March 1, and had but ten months, being changed to Jan. 1, and two months added. Thirty-one days were given to the 1st, 3d, 5th, 7th, 8th, 10th, and 12th months, and 30 days each to the rest, except February, which on every fourth year received an intercalary day, made by the sexto Calendas Martius, whence "leap year" came to be called Bissextile. As the Julian year had 3654 days, its length exceeded the true solar year by 11m.14 sec., so that the equinox in the course of centuries fell back several days. To correct this error, Pope Gregory XIII. in 1582 reformed the calendar by suppressing ten days, restoring the equinox to March 21. The Gregorian Calendar also made every year which is divisible by four without & remainder a leap year, except the centesimal years, which are only leap years when the first two figures are divisible by four: thus 1600 was a leap year, 1700, 1800, and 1900 common years, 2000 a leap year, etc. The length of the mean year is 365 d. 5h. 49m. 12 sec., exceeding the true solar year nearly 26 sec., which error amounts only to 1 day in 3,325 years. The Gregorian Calendar was adopted by Germany in 1700, and by English law in 1752, when the Julian Calendar, or old style, gave place to the new style, by dropping eleven days from the month of September, 1752. The festival of Easter, commemorating the resurrection of Christ, used to be observed on the 14th day of the moon, i.e., near the full moon-the same as the Jewish Passover. But the Council of Nice, A.D. 325, ordered Easter to be celebrated on the Sunday next succeeding the ful' moon. that comes on or next after the vernal equinox-March 21st; thus makin, Easter and the related feast and fast days movable holidays. |