Page:On the Magnet - Gilbert (1900 translation of 1600 work).djvu/260



T one time the shifting of the æquinoxes is quicker, at another slower, being not always equal: because the poles of the earth travel unequally in the arctick and antarctick circle of the Zodiack; and decline on both sides from the middle path: whence the obliquity of the Zodiack to the Æquator seems to change. And as this has become known by means of long observations, so also has it been perceived, that the true æquinoctial points have been elongated from the mean æquinoctial points, on this side and on that, by 70 minutes (when the prostaphæresis is greatest): but that the solstices either approach the equator unequally 12 minutes nearer, or recede as far behind; so that the nearest approach is 23 degrees 28 minutes, and the greatest elongation 23 degrees 52 minutes. Astronomers have given various explanations to account for this inequality of the præcession and also of the obliquity of the tropicks. Thebit, with the view of