The Harvest Moon. 321 



advancing 13 l-6th degrees in that time, goes 

 little more than twelve degrees farther from the 

 sun than she was on the day before. The moon 

 goes round the ecliptic in twenty-seven days 

 eight hours ; but not from change to change in 

 less than twenty-nine days twelve hours; so 

 that she is in Pisces and Aries once in every 

 lunation, and in some lunations she is twice in 

 one of these signs. 



As the moon can never be full but when she 

 is opposite to the sun, and the sun is never in 

 Virgo and Libra but in our autumnal months, it 

 is plain that the moon is never full in the oppo- 

 site signs, Pisces and Aries, but in the harvest 

 and hunter's moon. And therefore we can have 

 in a year only two full moons, which rise so near 

 the time of sunset for a week together, as above 

 mentioned. 



Here it will probably be asked, why we never 

 observe this remarkable rising of the moon but 

 in harvest, since she is in Pisces and Aries twelve 

 times in the year besides; and must then rise 

 with as little difference of time as in harvest? 

 The answer is plain; for in winter these signs 

 rise at noon ; and being then only a quarter of 

 a circle distant from the sun, the moon in them 

 is in her first quarter ; but when the sun is above 

 the horizon, the moon's rising is neither regarded 

 nor perceived. In the spring these signs rise 

 with the sun, because he is then in them ; and 

 as the moon changes in them at that time of the 



