AUTUMN

The third of the four seasons of the year. In a popular sense it denotes that period of the year in which the fruits of the earth are gathered in. Astronomically speaking, it is the time during which the sun is pa ing from the autumnal equinox to the winter solstice. Owing to the elliptic form of the earth's orbit, the seasons are not all of the same length; and owing to the prece ion of the equinoxes, their lengths vary a little from age to age. In the present century, the time which elapses between the sun's pa age through the autumnal equinox and his reaching the winter solstice, or while he pa es through the three signs of Libra, Scorpio, and Sagitarius, is 89 days 16 hours and 47 minutes. The autumn of the northern hemisphere corresponds to the spring of the southern. [s. 123]