THE EVENING SKY AT THE VERNAL EQUINOX

Too Long; Didn't Read

The year has its morning no less unmistakable in its characteristic features than the dawn of the day. The earth and all of its inhabitants feel the subtle influences of the dawning year, and Nature awakes at their touch. This annual morning comes when the sun transits the equator, moving north, at the beginning of his long summer tour, about the 20th of March. This is the epoch of the Vernal Equinox, when the springs of life begin, once more, to flow. Then the sun truly rises on the northern hemisphere. Then the mighty world of the north, which Providence has made the chief abode of vital organisms on this planet, rouses itself and shakes off the apathy of winter, and men, animals, and plants, each after their manner, renew their activities, and in many cases their very existence. This annual reawakening is one of the profoundest phenomena of nature, and there are secrets in it which science has not yet penetrated.