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by private munificence, the work accomplished in which is of ahigh order in skill and accuracy. Nor can we help feeling-some slight sentiment of pride that so much has hitherto beenaccomplished by Englishmen in the cause of astronomicalprogress. But we fear that England is now being somewhatleft behind in the race. Although some splendid examples ofindividual enterprise have recently been seen, in the mightyEaling telescope, or in the instruments and expeditions of thenoble owner of Dun Edit observatory, in which a devotion toscience shines forth which worthily rivals that of the late andof the present Lord Rosse, —we find that the Austrian, theFrench , the Australian , and the American Governments canafford to purchase instruments far surpassing in size those inany English national institution ; while the recent munificentfoundation of the Lick Observatory in California , under thewill of a late wealthy citizen of that name in San Francisco , isa precedent so worthy of imitation, that we would fain" hope itmay ere long be followed by some in our own country whohave money to spare and the desire to spend it well.
As to the connection of the Moon with the Calendar, it isworth} r of mention that even if the date of Easter depended(which it does not) upon the true date of the occurrence of aFull Moon upon, or after, the 21st of March, the festival mightfall five weeks earlier, or later, in different parts of the United Kingdom , if local time were taken into account. And in thisway,—that, in one town, the Full Moon might occur a fewminutes before midnight on March 20th by local time; inanother, a few minutes after that same midnight, or, in otherwords, very early on March 21st. The result would be, if theformer date were a Friday, to affect the date of Easter forthe places in question to the extent we have indicated; sothat for the latter Easter Sunday would be five weeksearlier than for the former.* A similar result would be still
* The rule at present is, that Easter Day is the Sunday next after theecclesiastical Full Moon which happens on, or next after, March 21st.If, therefore, the date of the supposed full phase be 11.55 P.M., on Friday,March 20th, for any given place, the next following Full Moon would beon Sunday, April lilth, and Easter Day would be on April 26th- But if,