[6] Homer, "Odyssey," Book v., 275.
[7] Manilius, "Astronomicon," Book i., 291-300.
[8] Manilius, "Astronomicon," i., 308, 309.
[9] This displacement amounts to about fifty seconds annually, or, more accurately, to 50".3. It is easy, therefore, to calculate that the complete rotation of the terrestrial axis around the poles of the ecliptic will occupy 25,765 years.
[10] These are also called the Pointers, because an imaginary line from the lower to the upper, prolonged in the same direction, passes nearly over the Polar Star.
[11] Pliny, "Historia Naturalis," Book ii., 24.
[12] Chaplin Child, "Beredici," p. 171.
[13] Pliny, "Historia Naturalis," Book xi.
[14] De Saussure, "Voyage dans les Alpes," Book iii., p. 45 (ed. 1803, Neufchâtel).
[15] Annales de Chimie et de Physique, vol. xxvii., p. 134.