The Postmaster General receives $8,000; the First, Second and Third Assistants, each $3,500; Superintendent of Foreign Mails, $3,000; Assistant Attorney General for Postoffice Department, $4,000; Superintendent of Money-order System, $3,000. The total official list for employes at Washington numbers about 5,000, with salaries ranging from those already given down to $660 a year.
The Department of Justice is organized with Attorney General, salary, $8,000; Solicitor General, $7,000; First Assistant Attorney General, $5,000; Second Assistant Attorney General, $5,000. There are about fifty clerks, copyists, messengers, laborers, etc., at salaries from $2,200 to $660.
WHEN THE SEASONS BEGIN.
Wenona, Ill.
To end an argument, please inform us, through Our Curiosity Shop, when summer begins.
C. M. Turner.
Answer.—The civil or tropical year, the one commonly used in the measure of time, is the period which elapses from the sun’s appearance on one of the tropical circles to its return to the same. It varies very slightly, and has a mean length of 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 49.7 seconds. Astronomically considered, the four seasons begin at the equinoctial or the solstitial points. The summer solstice is the meridian, passing through the point where the sun touches the tropic of cancer; the winter solstice is the meridian passing through the point where it touches the tropic of capricorn; and the equinoctial points are the points at which the sun’s path or equinoctial crosses the celestial equator. All these points shift, according to very exact astronomical laws, from year to year; and so the precise times when the seasons begin are matters of the nicest mathematical calculations. For example, last year the seasons began as follows:
Winter began Dec. 21, 1881, at 10:52 a. m. and lasted 90 days, 1 hour, and 10 minutes.
Spring began March 21, 1882, at 12:02 p. m. and lasted 91d, 20h, and 4m.