THE STARRY HEAVENS IN APRIL 



375 



half times as far away from this body 

 as the earth is. It therefore always 

 remained far outside of the orbit of the 

 earth. When discovered, on February 

 9, the comet was in the position B, and 

 moving" about the sun in almost ex- 

 actly the same direction as the earth 

 moves. Since this time it has been re- 

 ceding along the path BC and thus 

 moving northward among the stars 

 and at the same time increasing its 

 distance from us. As far as can be 

 learned from the observations, the path 

 of this comet is not a closed one, but 

 the infinitely long curve called a para- 

 bola ; there is thus no reason to sup- 

 pose that after having passed around 

 the sun and thus disappeared from our 

 view it will ever return to be seen by 



us again. 



The Occurrence of Easter. 



(Written for March issue;. 



The center of the sun will this year 

 cross the Celestial Equator on March 20 

 at 11 hours 51 minutes 16 seconds A. 

 M. (Eastern Standard Time), and at 

 this instant spring will begin. Our pres- 

 ent calendar depends wholly upon the 

 position of the sun in the sky; as the 

 succession of the seasons, is, of course, 

 caused by the motion of the sun alone, 

 this is by far the most natural and con- 

 venient body to employ for the reckon- 

 ing of time. In earlier times, however, 

 the calendar was based almost wholl} 

 upon the moon. The Mohammedans 

 still employ a purely lunar calendar ; 

 their year consists of twelve lunar 

 months, and is therefore about ten days 

 shorter than ours. It follows as a con- 

 sequence that any fixed date in their 

 calendar will occur about ten days 

 earlier each year, (by our reckoning), 

 and will hence move through all of the 

 four seasons in about thirty-six years. 



Though the moon has thus been 

 wholly discarded from our civil reckon- 

 ing, it still governs the occurrence of 

 church days ; thus Easter, for example, 

 is always the Sunday immediately fol- 

 lowing that full moon which occurs 

 first after the Vernal Equinox. The 

 Vernal Equinox is this year on March 

 21 ; the next full moon is on Wednes- 

 day, March 31, and the following Sun- 

 day (April 4) is therefore Easter 

 Sunday. 



It is thus evident that the date may 

 vary as much as five weeks in different 

 years. During the past century Easter 

 occurred as early as March 23 three 

 times, and once (in 1818) it occurred on. 

 March 22. Its earliest occurrence dur- 

 ing the present century was in 1913. 

 March 22. Next year we will also have 

 a very late occurrence, the date being 

 April 23. 



It is thus seen that while the date of 

 occurrence of the present year is a 

 rather early one it is by no means re- 

 markably so. The average of all pos- 

 sible dates is April 8. 



Children study astronomy at the dis- 

 trict school, and learn that the sun is 

 ninety-five millions of miles distant and 

 the like, a statement which never made 

 any impression on me, because I never 

 walked it, and which I cannot be said to 

 believe. But the sun shines nevertheless. 

 Though observatories are multiplied, the 

 heavens receive very little attention. The 

 naked eye may easily see farther than 

 the armed. It depends on who looks 

 through it. Man's eye is the true star- 

 finder, the comet-seeker. No superior 

 telescope to this has been invented. In 

 those big ones, the recoil is equal to the 

 force of the discharge. "The poet's eye 

 in a fine frenzy rolling" ranges from 

 earth to heaven which the astronomer's 

 eye not often does. It does not see far 

 beyond the dome of the observatory. — 

 Thoreau. 



The United States Weather Bureau 

 has daily reports from 4,391 different 

 stations, or 144 stations for each 10,- 

 000 square miles. By contrast with 

 this, the corresponding records for the 

 British Isles are obtained from 5,370 

 stations, or 420 to each 10,000 square 

 miles. 



That ancient phrase about "the teem- 

 ing millions of the East" will need to 

 be revised in the light of new facts. 

 It now appears that while the popula- 

 tion of China is about one hundred 

 persons to the square mile, and of 

 India, 178; the United Kingdom sup> 

 ports an average of 374 human beings 

 on the same area, the Netherlands, 475, 

 while Belgium before it was devastated 

 by the Germans had no fewer than 659.. 



