ALMANAC

, a calendar or table, in which are set down and marked the days and feasts of the year, the common ecclesiastical notes, the course and phases of | the moon, &c, sor each month: and answers to the fasti of the ancient Romans.

The etymology of the word is much controverted among grammarians.—Some derive it from the Arabic, viz, from the particle al, and manah, to count. While Scaliger, and others, derive it from the same al, and the Greek manakos, the course of the months. But Golius controverts these opinions, and ascribes the word to another origin, though he still makes it of Arabic extract, which it more evidently is. He says that, in the East it is the custom for the people, at the beginning of the year, to make presents to their princes; and that, among the rest, the astrologers present them with their almanacs, or ephemerides, for the year ensuing; whence these came to be called almanha, that is, new-year's gifts. But this derivation seems rather strained and improbable; for, by the same rule, the gifts or productions of other artists, or classes of men, might also be called almanacs. There are other guesses at the etymology; and Verstegan writes the word almonac, and makes it of German original. Our ancestors, he observes, used to carve the courses of the moon, for the whole year, upon a square piece of wood, which they called al-monaght, which is as much as to say, in old English or Saxon, all-moon-heed.

Almanacs are of various kinds and composition, some books, others sheets, &c, some annual, others perpetual. The essential part is the calendar of months, weeks, and days; the motions, changes, and phases of the moon; with the rising and setting of the sun and moon. To these are commonly added various matters, astronomical, astrological, chronological, meteorological, and even political, rural, medical, &c; as also eclipses, solar ingresses, aspects, and configurations of the heavenly bodies, lunations, heliocentric and geocentric motions of the planets, prognostications of the weather, and predictions of other events, the tides, twilight, equation of time, &c.

Till about the 4th century, almanacs bore the marks of heathenism only; from thence to the 7th century, they were a mixture of heathenism and christianity; and ever since they have been altogether christian: but at all times, astrological and other predictions have been considered as an essential part, and still are so to this day with several of them, notwithstanding that most people assect to disbelieve in such predictions.

Nautical Almanac, and Astronomical Ephemeris, is a kind of national almanac, chiefly for nautical purposes, which was begun in the year 1767 under the direction of the Board of Longitude, on the recommendation of the present worthy Astronomer Royal, who has the immediate conducting of it. It is still published by anticipation for several years before hand, for the convenience of ships going out upon long voyages, for which it is highly useful, and was found eminently so in the course of the late voyages round the world for making discoveries. Besides most things essential to general use, that are to be found in other almanacs, it contains many new and important particulars; more especially, the distances of the moon from the sun and fixed stars, which are computed for the meridian of the Royal Observatory of Greenwich, and set down to every three hours of time, expressly designed for computing the longitude at sea, by comparing these with the like distances observed there.