CH. i. THALESANAXIMANDER. 9 



day, till in three months, when winter had passed away and 

 the plants and trees began to bud, the sun took exactly 

 twelve hours to pass across the sky from sunrise to sunset, 

 so then the day was twelve hours long, and the night also 

 twelve hours ; this was called the spring equt-nox, or equal 

 night, meaning that the day and night were of equal length. 

 After this the sun still rose higher every day, and in three 

 months more stood for some days nearly overhead at mid- 

 day, thus making a long journey from sunrise to sunset, and 

 causing the day to be long and the night short. This was 

 the summer solstice. Then the sun began to rise less high 

 every day, and in another three months there was again 

 equal day and equal night the autumn equinox had arrived. 

 Finally, in another three months, the shortest day came 

 round again, and the whole round began afresh. This was 

 how Thales marked out the solstices and the equinoxes ; we 

 still call them by the same name as he did, and you may 

 watch these changes of the sun in the sky for yourself! 



Thales knew that the sun and stars were not gods, and 

 thought they were made of some fiery substance ; he knew, 

 also, that the moon receives its light from the sun and reflects 

 it back to us. He was very learned in mathematics, and 

 framed several propositions now found in the ' Elements of 

 Euclid.' He is also said to have foretold an eclipse, and 

 though this has been doubted, it is now certain that he 

 had sufficient data to predict such an event. 



Anaximander of Miletus, 610 B.C., the friend of 

 Thales, was the netft Greek who made important dis- 

 coveries in science. He invented a sun-dial, by making a 

 flat metal plate with the hours of the day marked upon it in 

 a certain order, so that a large pin, or style as it is called, 

 standing in the middle of the plate, cast a shadow on the 

 ri^ht hour whenever the sun shone upon it You can 



