DIVISIONS OF THE SEASONS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXX, Issue 9239, 29 June 1893, Page 3

DIVISIONS OF THE SEASONS.

TO THE EDITOR. Sib.—No more popular error exists, probably. than in saying that the shortest day is midwinter, or that the longest day is midsummer. The correct division of the seasons is to reckon the summer from the first day of December, and the winter from the first day of June, because although the 21st December and the 21st June is the time of the sun's entering the solstices, common observation proves that the maximum heat and cold is not then reached, just as the maximum heat of the day is not experienced at noon, but a little later. For the benefit of your younger readers allow me to illustrate why this is so, by supposing a railway train of a dozen carriages to start exactly at 12 o'clock, and allowing each carriage five seconds to receive its momentum from the locomotive, it follows the twelfth carriage does not start for sixty seconds after the engine, and of course on the same calculation stops one minute after the engine has stopped. The earth after the shortest day is liko the twelfth carriage, some days are required before the warmth or the sun causes a change of temperature and vice versa.—lam, etc., J. T. A. 24th June, 1893. '