312 THE WINTER SOLSTICE 



LXXX 



One so often hears discussion as to what is the shortest 

 The winter day in the year, that I feel entitled to assume 

 solstice that I am not the only person unable to answer 

 the question confidently without referring to an almanac. 

 Lovers, and others similarly afflicted, will quote Walter 

 Savage Landor 



' Why do I smile ? I hear you say, 

 A month, and then the shortest day ; 

 The shortest, whate'er month it be, 

 Is the bright day you pass with me.' 



But the preponderance of popular opinion is in favour of 

 December 21 ; and it is true that there is no shorter day 

 than that. But it is not the shortest day, seeing that 

 there are six other days equally short the seven days 

 from 19th to 25th inclusive constituting the Winter 

 Solstice, or Sun Halt, when the sun's ecliptic touches the 

 Tropic of Capricorn. In fact, as late as January 4 the 

 sun rises three minutes later than on December 21, the 

 balance being redressed by later setting. There are, 

 therefore, seven days in each year upon which the sun 

 is above the horizon of Greenwich for only seven hours 

 forty-six minutes, an allowance of daylight which, grudg- 

 ing as it is, of course diminishes appreciably with every 

 degree of latitude north of Greenwich. 



Even so, the Winter Solstice marks the turn of the 

 year only in a chronological sense. The average coldest 

 month in the year is not December, when our soil re- 

 ceives least of the direct rays of the sun, but January, 

 because during the whole of that month the earth con- 



