Degree 54 min. Eng. 100 min. Fr. French feet. English feet. 328091.67 3078.444 3280-9167 The are is the square of the deca-metre, and is the unit for Paris pint is 313177 litre or 46.95 cubic inches. The stere is a cubic metre, and is the unit for Cubic or Solid Measure. Stere, French cubic feet. English cubic feet. 20.17385 OF THE OLD FRENCH MEASURES. 35 317 Inch 12 lines, 0.0888142+ A French League is nearly 23 English miles, or about 11 of an English League. By a decree of 1812, the Toise, Aune, Foot, &c. are allowed to be the denominations of measure for the common people of France, in the following ratios to the metre. The old litron 40.39345517 French cubic inches, by statute, the common litron is 48-8224 English cubic inches. but 921 do. 25 do. 27 do. 1 Kilogramme 45-35 do. 1 Hectogramme 453.50 do. The ratio of the French to the English foot here assigned is very little dif ferent from 1 to 1-6, which was formerly considered as the true ratio. AN ACCOUNT of the GREGORIAN OR NEW STYLE, TOGETHER WITH SOME CHRONOLOGICAL PROBLEMS, FOR FINDING THE EPACT, GOLDEN NUMBER, MOON'S AGE, &c. POPE GREGORY the XIIIth made a reformation of the calendar. The Julian calendar, or old style, had, before that time, been in general use all over Europe. The year, according to the Julian calendar, consists of three hundred and sixty five days and six hours; which six hours being one fourth part of a day, the common years consisted of three hundred and sixty five days, and every fourth year, one day was added to the month of February, which made each of those years three hundred and sixty six days, which are usually called leap years. This computation, though near the truth, is more than the solar year by eleven minutes, which, in one hundred and thirty one years, amounts to a whole day. By which the Vernal Equinox was anticipated ten days, from the time of the general council of Nice, held in the year 325 of the Christian Era, to the time of Pope Gregory; who therefore caused ten days to be taken out of the month of October in 1582, to make the Equinox fall on the 21st of March, as it did at the time of that council. And, to prevent the like variation for the future, he ordered that three days should be abated in every four hundred years, by reducing the leap year at the close of each century, for three successive centuries, to common years, and retaining the leap year at the close of each fourth century only. This was at that time esteemed as exactly conformable to the true solar year; but Dr. Halley makes the solar year to be three hundred and sixty five days, five hours, forty eight minutes, fifty four seconds, forty one thirds, twenty seven fourths, and thirty one fifths: According to which, in four hundred years, the Julian year of three hundred and sixty five days and six hours will exceed the solar by three days, one hour and fifty five minutes, which is near two hours, so that in fifty centuries it will amount to a day. Though the Gregorian calendar, or new style, had long been used throughout the greatest part of Europe, it did not take place in Great Britain and America till the first of January, 1752; and in September following, the eleven days were adjusted by calling the third day of that month the fourteenth, and continuing the rest in their order. |