Now, as we have said, this slow swinging round of the axis of the earth produces the so-called precession of the equinoxes. In a period of about 25,800 years, the axis makes one complete swing round, so that in that space of time the celestial poles describe a revolution about the poles of the ecliptic, which remain fixed. But since the equator is a circle situated half-way between the poles, it is evident that it must turn also. To illustrate this, take a round flat disk of tin, or pasteboard, to represent the equator and its plane, and perpendicularly through its centre run a straight rod to represent the axis. Put one end of the axis on the table, and, holding it at a fixed inclination, turn the upper end round in a circle. You will see that as the axis thus revolves, the disk revolves with it, and if you imagine a plane, parallel to the surface of the table, passing through the centre of the disk at the point where the rod pierces it, you will perceive that the two opposite points, where the edge of the disk intersects this imaginary plane, revolve with the disk. In one position of the axis, for instance, these points may lie in the direction of the north-and-south sides of the room. When you have revolved the axis, and with it the disk, one quarter way round, the points will lie toward the east and west sides of the room. When you have produced a half revolution they will once more lie toward the north-and-south, but now the direction of the slope of the disk will be the reverse of that which it had at the beginning. Finally, when the revolution is completed, the two points will again lie north-and-south and the slope of the disk will be in the same direction as at the start. In this illustration the disk stands for the plane of the celestial equator, the rod for the axis of the celestial sphere, the imaginary plane parallel to the surface of the table for the plane of the ecliptic, and the two opposite points where this plane is intersected by the edge of the disk for the equinoxes. The motion of these points as the inclined disk revolves represents the precession of the equinoxes. This term means that the direction of the motion of the equinoxes, as they shift their place on the ecliptic, is such that they seem to precess, or move forward, as if to meet the sun in its annual journey round the ecliptic. The direction is from east to west, and thus the zodiacal signs are carried farther and farther westward from the constellations originally associated with them; for these signs, as we have said, are so arranged that they begin at the vernal equinox, and if the equinox moves, the whole system of signs must move with it. The amount of the motion is about 50′′.2 per year, and since there are 1,296,000′′ in a circle, simple division shows that the time required for one complete revolution of the equinoxes must be, as already stated in reference to the poles, about 25,800 years. A little over 2000 years ago the signs and the constellations were in accord; it follows, then, that about 23,800 years in the future, they will be in accord again. In the meanwhile the signs will have backed entirely round the circle of the ecliptic.