indicated a particular season. The sun enters the sign Aries on the 21st of March, but it does not enter the constellation Aries till a month later. Still the sun, on entering the sign Aries, brings with it the same season that it did 2000 years ago, when it entered the sign and constellation at the same time. By this retrograde motion of the points on which the seasons det pend, known by the name of the precession of the equinoxes, the signs have withdrawn from the constellations about one-twelfth part of the whole circuit of the heavens, and in 24,000 years more, they will have gone entirely round, so as to resume their former places. Hence it will be seen that, although the ancients made use of particular positions of the stars with respect to the sun, as their rising just before the sun, or their setting just after it, as indicative of the seasons, yet this method would lead to great errors after the lapse of a considerable period.

VI. ASTROLOGY.

THE greatest absurdities that have prevailed in the world, if thoroughly examined, will be found to have some decent apology, some plausible foundation; for they have been received with favor by men of the same nature with ourselves. It is admitted on all hands, that the heavenly bodies determine our physical condition. The obliquity of the ecliptic, the precession of the equinoxes, the progressive motion of the apsides, the nutation of the earth's axis, may be mere sounds to most ears; but, understood or not, they stand for facts, the influence of which is felt by all. Whether a man shall be 4 or 6 feet high, whether he shall be, in strictness of language, a rational being, or a mere slave of his passions, may depend upon the latitude in which he happens to be born. Not only the plague, the yellow fever, the malaria, the sirocco, and east wind, are determined by geographical limits, but also, to a greater or less degree, moral and political diseases, the contagion of licentiousness, and the storms of the passions. The physical man and the moral man are united by the closest communication and sympathy. They are, like the Siamese twins, bound to each other by a strong and indissoluble tie. Now the material frame, with its exquisite structure, its wonderful mechanical contrivances, and fine organs of sense, grows up like animals and plants, by a continual accession from surrounding matter. It is nourished and matured by fire, air, earth, and water. As a greater degree of heat accelerates the progress of a plant, so a tropical sun brings to maturity those physical and intellectual powers, which require twice the number of revolutions of the sun to perfect them in a more northern clime, where his rays exert but half the energy. Thus the developement of mind, like the opening of a flower, takes place sooner or later, according to the state of the thermometer; moreover, in the subsequent period of manhood, the more or less perfect predominance of reason

and the higher principles of our nature, is intimately connected with the physical character of the world about us.

It will not be denied, that whatever belongs to soil and climate, to scenery, to animal and vegetable productions, to the air we breathe, and the light by which we see, is derived more or less directly from celestial influences. Day and night, summer and winter, seed-time and harvest, with their mighty train of consequences, are the simple and natural results of our different positions with respect to the sun. This has been felt by those who have attained to little that deserves the name of science; and it required but little observation and study to be able to predict the return of the same season, and the time of the rising and setting of the sun. A longer series of observations and more elaborate calculations, resulted in foretelling also the particular aspects and positions of other heavenly bodies. At length the wonderful phenomena of eclipses of the sun and moon, were announced, long before they took place, with a degree of truth and exactness, that astonished the world. This being accomplished, it was an easy transition in the minds of the mass of mankind, in an unenlightened age, to extend this prescience and foresight to other natural events, as earthquakes, famine, and pestilence. Those who could predict the extraordinary phenomena of eclipses, might well be presumed to understand every thing relating to such minor occurrences as rain, hail and snow, winds and tempests; and in an ignorant age, and among a debased and credulous people, such predictions would be readily confounded with those of a moral and political nature.

Our knowledge extends to the future with respect to those events, all the causes and circumstances of which we perfectly understand. Eclipses of the sun and moon, planets and stars, depend simply upon their relative positions. Now the motions of these bodies result from a few simple laws, which we have succeeded in discovering, so as to be able to tell where one of these bodies will be at any particular time, almost to a hair's breadth. We are thus able to predict eclipses accurately, and men rely fully upon these predictions, because they have so long been found by the experience of the world to prove true. Now the motion of the air, or wind, depends upon the same general principles, as the motion of the heavenly bodies. But here on the earth there are, for the most part, so many things to be taken into consideration, that we are unable, except in some of the most simple cases, to anticipate the result. We could predict the motion of a cannon ball as we do that of a planet or comet, if the air were removed, and we knew the initial velocity and direction; and we can allow for these modifying circumstances according to the accuracy of our knowledge of these circumstances. We can also predict, to a certain degree, the direction, velocity, &c. of the wind in certain parts of the earth, as between the tropics, on small islands, &c. where we are acquainted with

all the leading circumstances of the phenomena. But in the temperate Jatitudes the causes affecting the direction and force of the wind, are very numerous, and too imperfectly known, to admit of any such attempt. We can calculate accurately the length of a particular day at any place, and the altitude of the sun at any hour of the day. In other words, we can state accurately the general causes which determine the temperature of such a day in such a place. But there are many modifying circumstances, as the direction of the wind, the clearness of the atmosphere, &c. which we cannot take into consideration; and therefore we can predict the temperature only in a general way, without being able to say precisely at what degree the thermometer will stand.

Fair weather and foul are the result of so many causes, some of which, as the chemical changes that are going on in the atmosphere, are so imperfectly understood, that we can make no pretensions whatever to foreknowledge in these particulars, as we do in regard to eclipses. There are, it is true, certain states of the air, and certain appearances in the heavens, that are generally followed by a change in the weather; and a long habit of observation may enable seamen and others deeply interested, to anticipate the weather for a few hours. But no one can lay claim to such knowledge a week beforehand, and still less in season to insert it in an Almanac. All such predictions, therefore, from whatever authority, are to be regarded as a species of quackery, the relics of astrology, of a system of fraud, which the selfish and designing are always ready to practise upon the credulous and unthinking part of society.

Some of our Almanacs continue to give the name of dog-days to a certain period extending from the latter part of July to the beginning of September; and many persons perhaps still believe, that the Dog-Star, or Sirius, has something to do with the warm and sultry weather which we usually have at this season. The fact is, that the sun was formerly in the neighbourhood of this star at this time of the year; and before other and better means were devised, the near approach of the sun to a star was used to denote the season. Two thousand years ago it so happened, that the sun passed this star in the warmest part of summer. But it does not pass it so soon now by a month, on account of the precession of the equinoxes; and in about 8000 years, it will be later still by five months, and dog-days would happen in the middle of winter. Aware of this, Almanac-makers were in doubt for some time whether they should give the name of dog-days to the warmest part of summer, or to the time when the sun is near this star. But finding at length, that if they conformed to the original idea, they should gradually carry this period into autumn, they left the star, and returned to the season intended to be marked by it.

VII. MOON'S PHASES, HARVEST MOON, ECLIPSES, &c.

THE moon does not shine by its own light. It is illuminated, like the objects about us, by the rays of the sun. Accordingly, only that part appears bright, which is turned toward the sun. As the moon revolves round the earth in nearly the same direction in which the sun revolves, it is sometimes between us and the sun, passing, however, for the most part, a little to the north or south, instead of coming into an exact line joining the earth and sun. At these times the illuminated part of the moon is turned directly from us, and for a day or two we lose sight of the moon entirely. This is called the change or new moon. But as the moon moves among the stars so much faster than the sun as to go round and come up with the sun again in about 29 days, it soon departs so far from the sun, that a narrow streak of light is discernible; that is, the hemisphere presented to the sun, and of course always illuminated, is slightly turned toward the earth, exhibiting at first a semicircular thread of light which soon enlarges to a crescent; and, at the end of seven days, becomes a semicircle. This is what we call the first quarter. At this time the line joining the earth and moon is at right angles to the line joining the earth and sun, and half the illuminated hemisphere is turned towards us. The moon now rises about noon, and passes the meridian about 6 P. M. The moon pursuing its course farther and farther from the sun, the phase enlarges beyond a semicircle, and in about 7 days more it presents an entire circle, and is called the full moon. It is now opposite to the sun in the heavens, rising when the sun sets, and setting when the sun rises. From this time it begins to approach the sun on the other side, going through the same changes as before, only in an inverted order; so that in a little more than a week after the full, it becomes again a semicircle, rising near midnight, and setting near noon. This is called the third quarter. It thence decreases, becomes a crescent, and overtakes the sun again, at which time it disappears as before, and recommences the same changes.

As the moon completes a revolution in about 29 or nearly 30 days, it must move at the rate of 360°, or 120 a day nearly. Now the daily apparent motion of the heavens, or real motion of the earth on its axis, is at the rate of 350°, or 15° in an hour. If therefore, the sun and moon are on the meridian at the same time to-day, to-morrow, when the sun comes to the meridian, by the diurnal motion, the moon will be 12° to the east, and will of course arrive at the meridian nearly an hour (50m.) after the sun. This interval of 50 minutes will be doubled the second day, tripled the third, and so on. Similar intervals will take place also between the rising of the sun and moon; in other words, the moon will rise at a mean about 50 minutes later and later every night. We say at a mean, because the

moon's path is much more oblique to the horizon at some times than at others, on which account there is a much less difference in the time of rising and setting two successive nights. On the supposition that the moon's orbit coincides with the ecliptic (it is inclined only about 5o), it would make the least angle with the horizon when in the 1st of Aries, and it would rise two successive nights with a difference much less than 50 minutes. But we take little note of the moon's rising, except when near the full, and there can be in a year only one full moon, or at most but two full moons, when the moon is near the 1st of Aries, or the vernal equinox, at which time the sun would be near the 1st of Libra; that is, this favorable circumstance in the moon's rising, will happen in the latter part of September or the beginning of October; and being at the busy season of harvest, when the light of this prolonged full moon facilitates the labors of the husbandman, it has obtained the name of the Harvest moon. The next full moon, having in some degree the same character, is sometimes called the Hunter's

moon.

When the moon thus rises for several successive nights with the least difference of time, on account of the smallness of the angle which its path makes with the horizon, it sets with the greatest difference, since, at setting, the angle which its path makes with the horizon, is now the greatest. Each of these circumstances tends to prolong the time that the moon is above the horizon.

The conditions of the harvest moon are reversed at the opposite season, namely, in March, when the full moon takes place in Libra; and now it rises for several successive nights with the greatest difference, and sets with the least.

We have considered the moon's orbit or path as coinciding with the ecliptic, whereas it is inclined about 5o; and it will accordingly be sometimes inclined to the horizon 5o more and sometimes 5° less, than the ecliptic. On this account the difference in the time of rising of the harvest moon is continually varying from year to year, through a period of nearly 19 years, in which the series is completed.

Since the angle which the moon's path makes with the horizon becomes less and less as we increase our latitude, so the circumstance above noted, of the small difference in the rising of the harvest moon, is more conspicuous in high latitudes, and less so as we approach the equator. Thus those parts of the earth are most favored in this respect, which, on account of the shortening of the days, most need this benefit of the moon's presence.

We have already mentioned, that at new moon, or when the moon comes between us and the sun, it generally passes a little to the north or south of the sun, and hardly ever falls exactly in a line joining the earth and sun. This is owing to the oblique position of the moon's orbit to the