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THE CELESTIAL MOTIONS

direction, whether the earth is east, west, north, or south from the sun.

To see the effect of the inclination upon the ecliptic suppose that, at noon on some twenty-first day of March, the earth should suddenly stop turning on its axis, but continue its course around the sun. What we should then see during the next three months is represented in Figure 7, in which we are supposed to be looking at the southern sky. We see the sun on the meridian, where it will at first seem to remain immovable. The figure shows the

Fig. 7.—Apparent Motion of the Sun along the Ecliptic in Spring and Summer.

celestial equator passing through the east and west points of the horizon as already described and also the ecliptic, intersecting it at the equinox. Watching the result for a time equal to three of our months we should see the sun slowly make its way along the ecliptic to the point marked "summer solstice," its farthest northern point, which it would reach about June twentieth.

Figure 8 enables us to follow its course for three months longer. After passing the summer solstice, its

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