Adams, Walter M.: The house of the hidden places: a clue to the creed of early Egypt from Egyptian sources (London, 1895)

126 The Mystery of the Heavens. [Ch.

of Egypt with our own Leap Year, for which
we are, in fact, indebted to that country,
through the astronomer Sosigenes, who was
imported by Julius Csesar from Alexandria, to
remedy in some degree the confusion of the
Roman Kalendar. That famous Greek appears
to have performed his task very much after a
fashion not unknown to adapters. He cared
—perhaps he knew — very little about the
astronomical principle involved in the Egyptian
reckoning, and nothing at all about the niceties
of further adjustment which it demanded ;
indeed, before half a century was passed, his
own corrections required to be corrected. He
took no heed of standard or of measure, of
orbit or of sacred interval. But first he cut
up the year into twelve unequal and unmean-
ing bits—to say he divided it into portions is
far too scientific an expression—which rags
bore indeed the name of the insulted moon,
but of which that mighty measurer conde-
scended to make no sort of recognition. And