ALMANAC, in matters of literature, a table containing the calendar of days and months, the rising and setting of the sun, the age of the moon, &c.
Authors are nekher agreed about the inventor of almanacs, nor the etymology of the word; some deriving it from the Arabic particle al, and manah, to count ; whilst Others think it comesfrom almanah, i. e. handsels, or new year's gifts, because the astrologers of Arabia used, at the beginning of the year, to make presents of their ephemerides for the year ensuing.
As to the antiquity of Almanacs, Du cange informs us, that the Egyptian as trologers, long before the Arabians, used the term almenach, and ahnenacIrica des criptio, for their. monthly predictions. Be this as it will, Itegiomontanus is allowed to have been the first who reduced alma nacs to their present form.
Atsialvecs, construction if. The first thing to be done is, to compute the sun's and moon's place for each day in the year, or it may be taken from some epheme rides and entered in the almanac ; next, find the dominical letter, and, by means thereof, distribute the calendar into weeks : then, having computed-the time of Easter, by it fix the other moveable feasts ; adding the immoveable ones, with the names of the martyrs, the rising and setting of each luminary, the length of day and night, the aspects of the pla nets, the phases of the moon, and the sun's entrance into the cardinal points of the elliptic, i. e. the two equinoxes and
solstices.
TheSe are the principal contents of al manacs; besides which there are others of a political nature, and consequently different in different countries, as the birth-days and coronation of princes, ta bles of interest, &c.
On the whole, there appears to he no mystery, or even difficulty, in almanac making, provide'd tables of the heavenly motions be not wanting. For the duties upon almanacs, see STAMP-DITTIES. •