Well, I am glad it is here now for me. Will there be time for my London cousins to catch a glance at it when it wanders northward again?
O no, no; it does not move quite so fast as that. But if Abraham had been sojourning in southern Europe, instead of Asia, he could have seen it, though it was then making its way back to the south.
How could the Cross slip away from the other southern stars to go on such migrations?
Not so. All the stars keep their places relatively to each other, as you see them do in the nightly progress from east to west. In the daily motion none get before the other, nor did the Cross get before its neighbours.
Well, I am fairly done. That is a riddle.
Look at the question, boy. What makes the apparent daily motion of the stars?
The real daily motion of the earth.
And if, then, you observe any other peculiarity of movement among your bright friends up there, to what may you reasonably ascribe it?
I should imagine some peculiar twist, roll, or slipping of this world of ours.
True. And if there be seen among the polar stars, north as well as south, a slight but regular movement, a sort of a swing round, so that some stars get farther off the spot we call the south pole of the heavens, while others approached it nearer, and yet so swung round that at last all find their old places again, how could you get a motion of the earth to make up for all that?