A very remarkable fact must now be referred to. Although the _angular distance_ that the sun has to travel in passing first from the vernal equinox to the autumnal equinox, on the northern side of the equator, and then back again from the autumnal equinox to the vernal equinox, on the southern side of the equator, is the same, the _time_ that it occupies in making these two half stages in its annual journey is _not_ the same. Beginning from the 21st of March and counting the number of days to the 23d of September, and then beginning from the 23d of September and counting the number of days to the next 21st of March, you will find that in an ordinary year the first period is seven days longer than the second. In other words, the sun is a week longer above the equator than below it. The reason for this difference is found in the fact that the orbit of the earth about the sun is not a perfect circle, but is a slightly elongated ellipse, and the sun, instead of being situated in the centre, is situated in one of the two foci of the ellipse, 3,000,000 miles nearer to one end of it than to the other. Now this elliptical orbit of the earth is so situated that the earth is nearest to the focus occupied by the sun, or in perihelion, about December 31st, only a few days after the winter solstice, and farthest from the sun, or in aphelion, about July 1st, only a few days after the summer solstice. Thus the earth is nearer the sun during the winter half of the year, when the sun appears south of the equator, than during the summer half of the year, when the sun appears north of the equator. Now the law of gravitation teaches that when the earth is nearer the sun it must move more rapidly in its orbit than when it is more distant, from which it follows that the time occupied by the sun in its apparent passage from the vernal equinox to the autumnal equinox is longer than that occupied in the passage back from the autumnal to the vernal equinox.