ABSTRACT
Every nation forms an æra from some memorable events such as a change in religion; the accession of one family to the throne upon the extinction or expulsion of another; a great earthquake, or a flood, But as a multiplicity of aeras occasions consusion in public transactions, his majesty in the twenty-ninth year of his reign, ordered that all old dates should be discontinued, and substituted a new one in their stead, as will be hereafter particularly explained. By the joint exertions of the ancient philosophers, wonderful observatories have been erected, from whence, with the assistance of astronomical instruments, they ascertained the situations and motions of the heavenly bodies, and determined the latitudes and longitudes of places, with many other useful discoveries. The natural year and month are when the revolution is complete; and the artificial is when the computation is made in days, and not in revolutions.
