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Show How, Without Telescopes Was It Done? In this year, 1944, divisible by 4, we have a February Feb-ruary 29th, which by the arbitrary addition of a day keeps the sun and calendar together on the spring equinox. In the year 46 B. C, Julius Caesar gave the order, or-der, "Add one day every four years, straight thru. We did, and in his honor called it the Julian Calendar. Calen-dar. But along about 1582 Pope Gregory said in ef-rect, ef-rect, "The sun and the calendar are now out of kilter; kil-ter; let's smack in some days." So they did. And called it dating by New Style. All Continental Europe was under the sway of the Papacy, so part of Christendom obeyed, adopting adopt-ing the New Style, and added days; but England (which included us as a colony) was at loggershead with Rome, and John Bull and his crew refused until 1752; meantime, a youngster named George Washington Wash-ington was born (Old Style) Feb. 11, and not until he was a young man was it made February 22. Indians of North America, as true Indians as Utes, as Crows, as Sioux, by the name of Maya Indians, In-dians, living in Yucatan, revered Time made a religion of it; got to knew the comings and goings of their gods (personified in sun, moon and Venus), and, without benefit of telescops or meridian circle, or other delicately made astronomical device, so studied the heavens that they computed the formula In 1020 years the correction of the calendar is 247 days; then they multipled both terms by five to get In 5100 years correct by 1235 days, and recorded 1235 days on page 73 of the Dresden Codex, which was apparently one of their very fine text books. When the Conquistadores vanquished them about 1528, they built a huge bon fire and tossed these sacred sa-cred volumes into the flames, "for which the natives did crie and lament in great sorrow." No wonder! Those books were priceless. Three remain to us, spared from the flames. The interval 247 is found several times in the Dresden Codex, establishing it beyond dispute; and as said, giving the goal of 5100 years as calling for a calendar correction of 247 days. Let us see how accurate it was: . By our formula a year is longer than 365 days by the decimal .242,198; 5100 x .242,198 is 1235.21; they could use only integers, so they used 1235; or they were within 21100ths of a day in 5100, or the mere trifle of 2.80 hours anyone with a flair for figures can compute how much this error is per year. Our Gregorian calendar (without correction further fur-ther than as now used) is 97 days in 400 years, or in 5100 years, about 1237 days; the Maya got it closer clos-er at 1235! This the Maya computed within that period from about 700 A. D. to 1400 A. D.. Galileo had not invented in-vented the telescope until 1609. How in the name of all that is non-understandable, did the Maya do it? . We have all kinds of marvelously accurate instruments in-struments to measure the passing of a celestial body across the "meridian circle;" but how could they compute so accurately? We try to answer it by saying, "They had lines of sight; they told by shadows; they had a snailshell observatory (caracol); they used two sticks," and so we fumble trying to solve the riddle. Best, hadn't we better be honest and confess we don't know? But, whatever explanation we use, let it not supplant sup-plant the marvel of their achievement; it was not surpassed by any nation on the globe, their contemporaries; contem-poraries; and they did it without help from Europe or Asia, who had not as good to teach them. They corrected the calendar better than we did at the same time. Done by Indians superstitious Indians, sacrificing sacri-ficing humans to their gods! A calendar correction which excites our admiration, admira-tion, and dumfounds us to explain how it was done. In another place in their book the Maya compute that in 1520 years, the correction is 368 days. Our best formula in decimals gives 369.140; or, in 10,640 years they were out 98100ths of a day on that formula. for-mula. They cover page after page with various formulas, approximating the perfection ever just a-head a-head always striving for ultimate perfction, and that teasing perfection always just a trifle of a deci-mal deci-mal beyond a will-o-the-wisp that ever eludes. The Maya-astronomer-priest-mathematician was also an adept in architecture and in sculpture, and embodied his astronomical religion in each but, threw a live virgin into a well to propitiate the god of rain. What incongruity! A head and brain towering in the clouds, but feet of clay. He passed into decadence as a nation, and today, a miserable, lowly people are all that is left of a former greatness. Nature does it like that! |