TEE LONGEST DAY

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 148, 20 December 1930, Page 8

TEE LONGEST DAY

BUT NOT MIDSUMMER \ Monday next, 22nd December, is stated on the "Evening Post" almanac and similar publications to bo the longest day. To all intents and purposes it is. If, however, the longest day is taken to mean that daily period of 24 hours which includes the moment when the sun reaches its apparent southernmost point, perhaps 23rd December can lay equal claim to the honour of being the longest day. For tho sun reaches that point somewhere about midnight on tho 22nd, probably the first thing in the morning on tho 23rd. Available astronomical almanacs are content to omit decimal points in these calculations, so it is difficult to bo absolutely exact. However, probably no one will worry, and it is not worth starting a controversy about. On Monday tho sun rises in "Wellington at 4.44 a.m. (Summer Time) and sets at 7.54 p.m., giving fifteen hours and ten minutes of daylight, and this is tho maximum amount ever achieved in this part of tho world. Tho sun, as a matter of fact, has been rising a minute or two earlier daily for the last few days, and will continue to set a little later for some days to come, but the morning loss and evening gain counter-balance, and Monday can be considered as long as any other day. , No one should bo under the misapprehension that because Monday is tho longest day it is also midsummer clay. ] The folly of such an assumption was seen last year, when the summer did not begin until February. Even this ■yenr it would be the height of pessimistic thought to imagine that we have reached the middle of- summer. The greater amount of that season, everyone : devoutly hopes, is still to come, and records of recent years show that the | best weather can be expected to occur after the longest day.