s nothing
more than the number of days by which the common solar year of 365 days
exceeds the common lunar year of 354 days. So that the epact of the
first year is 11, because the common solar year exceeds the common lunar
year by 11 days, and these added to the 11 days of the first, produce 22
as the epact. At the end of the second year the new moon falls 22 days
sooner than in the first year. The epact of the third year is three,
because if 11 be added to the 22, the result is 33, and from this 33 we
subtract 30 days which make up a lunar embolism and the remainder gives
us 3, the epact for the year, and so on.

In the Breviary there is a table (_alia Tabella epactarum_)
corresponding to the golden numbers from the year 1901 to the year 2000
inclusive. To take away all doubt in the use of this table, a new table
of epacts, an example may be quoted. In the year 1901 the epact was X,
which is placed under the golden number 2; and new moons appear on the
21st January, 19th February, and 21st March.... Again, in 1911 the epact
is not marked by a number, but by an asterisk (see Table in Breviary)
which is placed under the golden number 12, and in the calendar for the
whole year will indicate the new moon on January 1st, January 31st (for
in February there is no new moon indicated in the Table; the sign [*] is
not found), on March 1st, March 31st, and on April 29th. In the year
1916 the golden number is 17 and the epact is 25 (written not in Roman
numerals but in ordinary figures), the new moons occur on 6th January,
4th February, 6th March, 4th April, etc. For when the epact is 25,
corresponding with golden numbers greater than the number 11 in the
calendar, we must take in computation the epact 25 (written in modern
figures) but where the epact corresponds with numbers less than the
number 11, in the _tabella, the epact_ XXV. in Roman numerals must be
taken in calendar countings. This change takes place with epact 25 only,
so that the computation of the lunar years may more closely respond to
the solar year. It is for this cause, too, that in six places in the
calendar two epacts, XXV. and XXIV., are given.

The new Breviary contains a _tabella_ of Dominical letters, up to the
year 2000 A.D. It needs no comment.

_Indiction_. Indiction was a cycle of fifteen years, the first of which
dated from the third year of the Christian era. It was usual to indicate
the number of the year in a cycle and no mention was made of the