THE NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 203 
because men, at that dead season of the year, are usually 
within doors at the close of the day; while that for the latter 
might be fixed for any given spot in the garden or outlet; 
whence the owner might contemplate, in a fine summer’s 
evening, the utmost extent that the sun makes to the north- 
ward at the season of the longest days. Now nothing would 
be necessary but to place these two objects with so much 
exactness, that the westerly limb of the sun, at setting, might 
but just clear the winter heliotrope to the west of it on the 
shortest day; and that the whole disk of the sun, at the 
longest day, might exactly at setting also clear the summer 
heliotrope to the north of it. 
By this simple expedient it would soon appear that there is 
no such thing, strictly speaking, as a solstice; for, from the 
shortest day, the owner would, every clear evening, see the 
disk advancing at its setting, to the westward of the object; 
and, from the longest day, observe the sun retiring backwards 
every evening at its setting, towards the object westward, till 
in a few nights, it would set quite behind it, and so by degrees, 
to the west of it: for when the sun comes near the summer 
solstice, the whole disk of it would at first set behind the 
object; after a time the northern limb would first appear, and 
so every night gradually more, till at length the whole diam- 
eter would set northward of it for about three nights; but 
on the middle night of the three, sensibly more remote than 
the former or following. When beginning its recess from the 
summer tropic, it would continue more and more to be hidden 
every night, till at length it would descend quite behind the 
object again; and so nightly more and more to the westward. 
