All over the Atlantic seaboard boys, as well as jewelers ([see Fig. 169]), have wireless receiving sets and they receive the correct time every day by wireless free of charge. No license is required to receive wireless signals, the cost of the apparatus is little and the experience immense. Are you in on it?
CHAPTER XI
THE STARS OF THE ZODIAC
Zodiac!—It sounds to the untrained ear like the password of a bomb-thrower or a first cousin to a dish of Hungarian goulash.
It is enough, albeit, to scare even a Scout away from the stars, but be not afraid, for it can’t hurt you and you can’t eat it.
On the other hand, if you are on speaking terms with the zodiac (pronounced zo´-di-ak), it will help you to find the planets and at the same time you will add enough new constellations to those you already know to give you a high passing mark for a merit badge in the Boy Scouts if you want one. Besides, the signs and constellations of the zodiac will aid you to use the almanac and help you in many other ways.
You have often noticed that the Sun seems to travel through the sky over a path or belt that is always the same from west to east; you must have noticed, too, that the path of the Moon is almost the same as that of the Sun, but you may or may not remember that the planets also travel over the same path as the Sun and Moon.
It is just as though the Sun, Moon and planets moved at different speeds on an endless belt in the sky which runs round the Earth nearly in a line with its equator, though tilted at a slight angle to it, and this line is called the ecliptic. The way the ancients thought it was and the way it really looks to us is shown in [Fig. 170].
The ancients called this apparent path of the Sun, Moon and planets with the stars for a background the zodiac, so it is not such a horrible specimen after all.
We know, of course, that the Sun is the center of our solar system and that the planets, including the Earth and Moon, are at various distances from the Sun and that each moves in a path, or orbit, of its own, making a small angle with the ecliptic. What we call the Zodiac takes in all these orbits and is, therefore, a belt of considerable width through the center of which runs the ecliptic.
