The same positions of Laplace's "Moon," arranged around the earth, show that it would make only one revolution in a year. FIG. 16.--Laplace's "Perennial Full Moon."] There is a well-known phenomenon called _harvest moon_, concerning the nature of which there seems to be much popular confusion. An idea in fact appears to prevail among a good many people that the moon is a harvest moon when, at rising, it looks bigger and redder than usual. Such an appearance has, however, nothing at all to say to the matter; for the moon always _looks_ larger when low down in the sky, and, furthermore, it usually looks red in the later months of the year, when there is more mist and fog about than there is in summer. What astronomers actually term the harvest moon is, indeed, something entirely different from this. About the month of September the slant at which the full moon comes up from below the horizon happens to be such that, during several evenings together, she _rises almost at the same hour_, instead of some fifty minutes later, as is usually the case. As the harvest is being gathered in about that time, it has come to be popularly considered that this is a provision of nature, according to which the sunlight is, during several evenings, replaced without delay by more or less full-moonlight, in order that harvesters may continue their work straight on into the night, and not be obliged to break off after sunset to wait until the moon rises. The same phenomenon is almost exactly repeated a month later, but by reason of the pursuits then carried on it is known as the "hunter's moon." In this connection should be mentioned that curious phenomenon above alluded to, and which seems to attract universal notice, namely, that the moon _looks much larger when near the horizon_--at its rising, for instance, than when higher up in the sky. This seeming enlargement is, however, by no means confined to the moon. That the sun also looks much larger when low down in the sky than when high up, seems to strike even the most casual watcher of a sunset. The same kind of effect will, indeed, be noted if close attention be paid to the stars themselves. A constellation, for instance, appears more spread out when low down in the sky than when high up. This enlargement of celestial objects when in the neighbourhood of the horizon is, however, only _apparent_ and not real. It must be entirely an _illusion_; for the most careful measurements of the discs of the sun and of the moon fail to show that the bodies are any larger when near the horizon than when high up in the sky. In fact, if there be any difference in measurements with regard to the moon, it will be found to be the other way round; for her disc, when carefully measured, is actually the slightest degree _greater_ when _high_ in the sky, than when low down. The reason for this is that, on account of the rotundity of the earth's surface, she is a trifle nearer the observer when overhead of him.