Min is the prison in the derke cote,[1]
Min is the strangel and hanging by the throte,
The murmure, and the cherles[2] rebelling,
The groyning and the prine empoysoning."
[page 27]
For the present, however, let us consider the planet Mars, leaving slow Saturn to wait for us another month.
It has always seemed to me one of the most useful lessons in astronomy to follow the line by which, long ago, great discoveries were made. Thus, if the young reader went out on every fine night and noted the changing position of Mars, he traced out the track shown in Fig. 1. He noted, also, that the planet, which shone at its brightest about September 5, gradually grew less and less bright as it traveled off, after rounding the station near October 5 (really on Oct. 7), toward the east. He observed, then, that the seeming loop followed by the planet was a real looped track (so far, at least, as our observer on the earth was concerned). Fig. 2 shows the apparent shape of Mars's loop, the dates corresponding to those shown in Fig. 1. Only it does not lie flat, as shown on the paper, but must be supposed to lie somewhat under the surface of the paper, as shown by the little upright a, b, which, indeed, gives the distance under the paper at which the part of the loop is supposed to lie where lowest at m. The other similar uprights at M_1, M_2, and M_3 show the depression at these places. You perceive that the part M_1, M_2, lies higher than the part M_2, M_3. If the loop were flat, and, like E, the earth, were in the level of the paper, it would be seen edgewise, and the advancing, receding, and advancing parts of the planet's course would all lie on the same line upon the sky. But being thus out of the level, we see through the loop, so to speak, and it has the seeming shape shown in Fig. 1.[3]
FIG. 2. ONE OF MARS'S LOOPS.