Alexandria gazette. [volume] (Alexandria, D.C.) 1834-1974, 1858-03-27
THE GAZETTE.
SATURDAY MORNING, MARCH 81, 1858.
THE EQUINOX.

The EQUlNOA.
Some time when the reader was asleep
b.,veen Saturday and Sunday, the sun pass
ed tbs Eouinoctial Line. Yesterday, there
fore. was the Equinox,-as, in fact, il words
meant mucb,--Ssturday was also. That is
10 saw, translsting the language OF NJ. Blot,
the sun illumined the world from one pole to
the other. The white bear who lives on the
north pole, walked from night of six months
duration, rubbed his eyes. and, had be Ian
euage, would have cried like Persian 1.-The
sun! the suuw The other white bear, who,
mon the southern pole, dreameth OF the
nortbern,-as Milnes's palm-boy dreams OF
the ne-girl,-looked upon the same sun,
saw it creep below his horizon after us SIX
months of splendor. and for himseif, that
hear retired to his six months night, sleep,
and dreaming. And the world between, hao
avsrvwhere as much sunlight and as little
sunlight in ono place as another. There
was an equality of enjoyment which would
have satisfied jefferson. Between tropic
and tropic there was no distinction. North
and south agreed in light and darkness
Their DAYS were equal and their nights
For the equinox, which even as the reader
reads, has gone-had come.
Our lovely Saturday, therefore, was the
beginning of the "Equinoctial Storm" and
Yesterday its continuance. Where the SUI
perstition of the Equinoctial storm came
from, it is hard to say. The impression
seems to be that the Equinoctial line is of the
character of line Of people passing buckets
at a fire, and that the sudden passage of the
ann across disturbs their equilibrium, and
drenobes all who staud below. We have
sometimes supposed that the notion connected
originally with the entrance of the sun into
the constellation of "the Fishes" which takes
place Just before the Equinox. This took
place on Saturday at twenty-eight minutes
after four. II it were the worlds going in
among the fishes, we could understand that
a wet time might be spprebended. But even
this hating Interpretation does not apply to
the autumnal equinox, when the sun enters
the sphere of the radiant smiles of the "Nir-
GIN" None but cynio would suggest that
that was an occasion for us to "look out for
squalls"
It must, however, be confessed that what
ever the origin Of the notion, it we esti-
mate six great storms in year-and this 10
an under estimate-oneo of them will be found,
on the average, to come within month OF the
Equinox, before it and after 1t, and sometimes
two.
With the entrance of the sun into the
Fishes, the astronomers begin to count spring.
Spring began, therefore, on the northern half
of the world, on Saturday last, at twenty
eight minutes after four, as we have said, IN
the afternoon. The sun will not enter the
sign of the Virgin until seventeen minutes
after three on Thursday afternoon, Septem-
Der %. 1t follows, therefore, that the spring
and summer of this year together, for the
northern hemisphere, will be one hundred
and eighty six days, ten hours and forty whine
minutes in length, while the autumn and the
winter are seven days and more shorter, be-
ing but one hundred and seventy-eight days
nineteen hours and six minutes Ia length
We have to-day therefore, not only the graft
fyipg feeling that the winter of our discon'
tent is made glorious summer by this sun o.
the Fishes; but that the amount of our spring
and summer, thanks to our living in north
ern hemisphere, is pslpably more than tina
of our autumn and winter. 1t is sign o
the passing time north noted by the optimists
that for that immense majority OF manknc
who resids north of the equator, there Is more
summer than winter; as, thanks to the re-
fraction of light, there is, for all the world
more day than night. The cause OF this su
perior length Of the summer is to be found II
the greater distance Of the sun. His appa
rent angular motion in his orbit is all thu
slower, and from this laggard movement, hi
gives us greater number of our long sum
mer days than we have Of our short winter
opes.-BOston Adu.