92 Generating Economic Cycles 



only, then, to ask how long it will take the pointer, 

 with its mean daily gain of 36' 59". 5, to gain one 

 complete circuit, to have the interval in time between 

 successive conjunctions of the Earth and Venus — 



Figure 24. Illustration of the conjunctions of the Earth and Venus. 



in other words, there will be just as many days in this 

 interval as the number of times 36' 59".5 is contained 

 in 360°, or, reducing both to seconds, as 2219.5 is 

 contained in 1,296,000. The division . . . gives 

 us 583.9 days. 



" Our Venus-carried pointer thus takes 583.9 days 

 in overtaking the Earth. This is more than a year 

 by about 218.6 days, in which period, with her mean 

 motion of 59' 8". 3 per day, the Earth travels round 

 nearly 215^ degrees. Now, 216 degrees would be | 

 of a complete circuit. We see, then, that the next 

 conjunction-line must be set almost exactly | of the 

 way round from SVE, or in the position SViEi; the 

 next will have the position SV2E2 ; the third will have 

 the position SV3E3; the fourth, the position SV4E4; 

 and the fifth will be close up to SVE, in the position 

 SV5E5, about 2| degrees behind SVE. 



