an approximate count. There is some reason to believe that in the
earliest period the Egyptians made this count only 360 days. The
fact that their year was divided into twelve months of thirty
days each lends color to this belief; but, in any event, the
mistake was discovered in due time and a partial remedy was
applied through the interpolation of a "little month" of five
days between the end of the twelfth month and the new year. This
nearly but not quite remedied the matter. What it obviously
failed to do was to take account of that additional quarter of a
day which really rounds out the actual year.

It would have been a vastly convenient thing for humanity had it
chanced that the earth had so accommodated its rotary motion with
its speed of transit about the sun as to make its annual flight
in precisely 360 days. Twelve lunar months of thirty days each
would then have coincided exactly with the solar year, and most
of the complexities of the calendar, which have so puzzled
historical students, would have been avoided; but, on the other
hand, perhaps this very simplicity would have proved detrimental
to astronomical science by preventing men from searching the
heavens as carefully as they have done. Be that as it may, the
complexity exists. The actual year of three hundred and
sixty-five and (about) one-quarter days cannot be divided evenly
into months, and some such expedient as the intercalation of days
here and there is essential, else the calendar will become
absolutely out of harmony with the seasons.

In the case of the Egyptians, the attempt at adjustment was made,
as just noted, by the introduction of the five days, constituting
what the Egyptians themselves termed "the five days over and