"Bissextile" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the methods of astronomy and chronology which were used by their predecessors. They divided the year into eighteen months of twenty days each; but, as this gave the year only three hundred and sixty days, five supplementary days were added to each year, and a sixth day to every fourth year. The bissextile is known to have been used by the Mayas, Tzendals, and Quiches, and ...
— Ancient America, in Notes on American Archaeology • John D. Baldwin
... additional day every fourth year, making February to consist of twenty-nine days instead of twenty-eight, and, of course, the whole year to consist of three hundred and sixty-six days. The fourth year was denominated Bissextile, or leap year, because the sixth day before the calends, or first of March, ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... I can help you: nothing more difficult than to write a good novel, and nothing more easy than to write a bad one. If I were not above the temptation, I could pen you a dozen of the latter every ordinary year, and thirteen, perhaps, in the bissextile. So banish that Christmas cloud from your brow; leave off nibbling your pen at the wrong end, and clap a fresh nib to the right one. I have an ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... is amendment found in the alteration; so great an uncertainty there is throughout; so gross, obscure, and obtuse is our perception. 'Tis said that this regulation might have been carried on with less inconvenience, by subtracting for some years, according to the example of Augustus, the Bissextile, which is in some sort a day of impediment and trouble, till we had exactly satisfied this debt, the which itself is not done by this correction, and we yet remain some days in arrear: and yet, by this means, such ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... combined power of youth, ardour, and practice.' The lower classes calculate, purely by the mind without any help from pen or pencil, questions respecting interest; determine whether a given year be bissextile or not, &c. &c. The upper classes determine the age of the moon at any given time, the day of the week which corresponds with any day of any month, and year, and Easter Sunday for a given year. They will square any ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey--Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey |
