| Number of Days. | |
|---|---|
| 1 January to 30 April | 120 |
| 1 February to 31 May | 120 |
| 1 March to 30 June | 122 |
| 1 April to 31 July | 122 |
| 1 May to 31 August | 123 |
| 1 June to 30 September | 122 |
| 1 July to 31 October | 123 |
| 1 August to 30 November | 122 |
| 1 September to 31 December | 122 |
| 1 October to 31 January | 123 |
| 1 November to 28 February | 120 |
| 1 December to 31 March | 121 |
Now, from the preceding Table it appears that there is only one month in the year fulfilling this condition, namely, the month of March. It follows, therefore, that the cheese must have been made four months before, that is, in the month of December.
Shortly after this vision I received a visit from that great geologist, the erudite Professor Ponderdunder,[57] a member of all existing Academies, and Secretary of the most celebrated How-and-wi Academy for the Reconstruction of Primeval Time. I was anxious to have the opinion of this learned person upon my recent experience: but he was evidently envious of my vision, which he treated disrespectfully. {419} Possessed of an intellect which was anything but precocious, I had with much labour at last made him apprehend the arithmetic by which I had discovered the exact month of December in the date of the great series of 121 cataclysms, and I felt much mortified that he did not appreciate my ingenuity. All of a sudden he seemed intuitively to perceive the use that might be made of this vision. He then asked me with great earnestness whether I had communicated this new method of reasoning to any other person. On my answering in the negative, he entreated me not to say a word about it. He was especially anxious that Gardner Wilkinson, Layard, and Rawlinson should not get hold of it, lest they might anticipate the discovery which it would enable him to complete. He assured me that he could, by visiting Nineveh, and taking the Pyramids and Jericho on his road, with the aid of my formula, restore the true chronology from the creation.
[57] Author of the celebrated Treatise “On the Entity of Space,” the basis of all sound metaphysical reasoning.
〈THE LEARNED PONDERDUNDER STARTS FOR JERICHO.〉
Having given him this promise, he left me, and immediately telegraphed to a very influential friend, the Vice-President who managed the How-and-wi Academy, suggesting that not a moment should be lost in authorizing him to set out on this expedition, which although painfully laborious to himself personally and not without peril, he was willing to undertake for the glory of the Academy, and from the religious conviction that it would enable him to refute the frightful heresy of Bishop Colenso. Within twenty-four hours the faithful telegraph brought him back the order to start and the credit necessary for his equipment. He soon completed the latter, and was en route within the time I have mentioned.
It is with deep regret I have now to state, that just ten days after the active Secretary had started on his pious mission, I discovered that my reasoning about the month of December with all its consequences was completely vitiated {420} by not having taken into consideration the existence of leap years, in which case the magic number 121 occurs in no less than four cases; so that nothing at all is decided by it.
I can only add my hope that, if any of my readers should become acquainted with the whereabouts of the learned Ponderdunder, he would kindly communicate by electric telegraph this painful intelligence to that energetic traveller.
I have subsequently been informed that Professor Ponderdunder’s honorarium is only £800 a-year, and the payment of all travelling expenses. The former is doubled upon dangerous travel. I was told that he also enjoys a snug sinecure of considerable value recently instituted in his own country; being at the head of the department for the promotion of “Small Science and Low Art.” The family of the Ponderdunders possess the peculiar gift of manipulating learned bodies. The Flowery—Rhetorical, and the Zoo-Ethnological Societies barely escaped perdition under their costly autocracy. I regret also to add, (but truth forbids me to conceal the interesting fact) that Ponderdunder is not a member of all existing academies as his visiting card indicated.