| Show Al almanac mattao reading I 1 to the editor of the deseret news I 1 SIR our almanacs almanac a few years ago read sun stin in aries on the of march mach places pisces alie th e lath of F february mapry avrus ou 0 fhe of april apil sir but now the be american Ame almanacs as many us as I 1 lave bave seen read 41 su sun n in P Ps on tle af karch aries akes dihe of api april ia ac 11 ina kinckae the alft arence aw one ane abole zodiacal achl sign sian As many have applied to me for a reason of thijs difference I 1 beg leave to communicate abro through jt th the deseret which ol 01 of these two parties is is iu in the wrong fo one of them must necessarily essaY be wron A the s sun pit had aind alia ca culous ly fullen fallen b backward ak did iq in i the time of king hezekiah not net only 10 degi degrees degiers ees do as it then did on the 4 tl of ah ahaz az but three times ten degrees at tha thi tir time on u the ilie american almanacs almanac it is well known to observer veri that the fixed stars seem toshun forward in iii the from cearto year to year byllie by the precession odthe points and they are at this time about 31 deg degrees s moved from eliere they were in the lime 0 of deop barchus yar chus so that tho the stars stara which then appeared to be in aries seem seem I 1 now to be in turus tain us ac but iV whether hether the sun but is to lo be considered as one of thesa start stars in this respect is another question it is true that ali flie t 0 zodiac f hows billows th the ecliptic li P and not and every parallel of i it t r fore is parallel to lo the ecliptic und and the twelve signs of the zodiac are aie reckoned on the e ecliptic clip tle and aad are formed by dividing it into twelve parts called signs and the suit bun always appears to move in the ecliptic through the signs i 91 of the zodiac fro from ni to taurus ac biking a complete revolution in what is called a tropical j y r 1 I t rc r C 1 wi A apt the coleste consten 1111 jolls of fixed stars are denominated igns of the zodiac but tins this appa ent motion of the constellations is caused by the precession of 0 the lie L equinox equi equinoctial noc bial points making them appear to move a litile every year from eat east poni con arary to the sinis annual progressive motion in the ecliptic this is caused by the earths eart lis being r an u oblate ephe rod ro d for by b the earths eart lis motion on its axis there is more matter accumulated all around the equatorial parts than any where else oil the lie earth the sun vy by attracting attract ig g this or of matter braug the earths enT llis equator sooner under him in ill every return towards it than if there e were 1 to no such much ic and rd as he Is jhn oving in the ecliptic the equinoctial a points which ere on the equator where eliere it cuts cut a the ecliptic are shifted I 1 a little backward on the ec ecliptic I 1 apt 1 is as if it were to meet the sun at its itei return which motion is found by observation to be about 50 seconds of a degree in ill a year now the phenomena of the fixed stars are quite different to those or oatlie tile sun with respect to the ecliptic tile the whole eel ecliptic optic or 0 orbit or of the earth appears a mere point fr from in the fixed slurs and consequently it appears always on the smile side of them but it goes quite round the sun sun and must appear to extend the whole heavens lie hp avens if the sun therefore sets out from uny any constellation stel tel lation star or fixed point in the heavens the moment it departs from an point n will again come to the sanie equinox 20 minutes ia laja seconds of time thre or 50 seconds of a 11 degree before it arrives at the same star or fixed point from which it set out the year before so that with respect to the fixed stars the sun and equinoctial eq points with the whole ecliptic and therefore the signs of the zodiac with the whole year fall all hack back as if it were 30 31 degrees in 2160 years but this his motion we wa cannot experience experienc ei lor for it is always spring with nith us when the first 01 vernal equinox meets the sun but this motion makes the constellation stel lation of fixed stars appear to have gone backward as it if ehdy were left behind 30 degrees with respect to the signs in the ecliptic lit in that time and this shifting forward of the fixed stars from froin the sun suit makes the sun gun always bom generation to too generation come to the same point in in alie t le zodiac the same time lime of the year if this were oae ease and the sun from year to year were to keep in the same place among the fixed tars with respect t to th tho dad nn th tha bihm of these al almanacs maines seem to understand the tha constellations could never appear to advance in the heavens neither could we perceive any precession of the equinoctial points Q E D i i I 1 THOMAS JOB great salt liike city jan 19 1855 |
