126 INFLUENCE d* COUNTER-INFLUENCE. 



earth's centre, being flattened at the Poles and bulging at 

 the Equator, it follows that the sun's enormous weight 

 makes it vacillate, so that it describes at its axis a cone 

 around the poles of the plane of its orbit. Its movement 

 we see in the heavens in the precession of the equinoxes. 

 But the terrestrial axis traces it tremblingly, because the 

 moon, owing to its vicinity, exercises a perturbing action 

 on our planet, which, in its turn, exercises on the moon a 

 still more energetic influence. 



