§ 21. GAP BETWEEN §§ 40 AND 41. But admitting the genuineness of sections 40-45, it at once becomes evident that there are two distinct gaps or breaks in the continuity of the treatise; the first between 40 and 41; and the second between 43 and 44. A little consideration will account for these. Looking at the Canterbury Tales, we observe the very same peculiarity; at certain points there are distinct breaks, and no mending can link the various groups together in a satisfactory manner. This can be accounted for in part by our knowledge of the fact that the poet died before he had completed the proper linking-together of the tales which he had more or less finished; but I think it also shews him to have been a fragmentary worker. To suppose that, upon reaching Conclusion 40, he suddenly turned to the sections upon the 'umbrae,' which are at once more easy to explain, more suitable for a child, and illustrative of a different and more practical use of the Astrolabe, seems to me natural enough; and more probable than to suppose that anything is here lost. For, in fact, it is to the very MSS. that contain sections 41-43 that we are indebted for the last five words of sect. 40, so curiously omitted in the oldest and best MSS.; and this is a direct argument against the supposition of any matter having been here lost. § 22. GAP BETWEEN §§ 43 AND 44. The break between sections 43 and 44 may be explained in a totally different manner. In this case, the break indicates a _real_, not an accidental, gap. I suppose section 43 to have been really the _last_ section of Part ii, and I refer sections 44 and 45 to the _Fourth_ Part of the Treatise, and not to the _Second_ at all[49]. For if we run through the contents of Parts Three and Four (p. 177), we observe that they chiefly involve tables, with reference to one of which we find the words 'upon which table ther folwith a _canon_,' &c. Now sections 44 and 45 exactly answer the description; they are alternative _canons_, shewing how certain tables may be used. It happens that Conclusion 40 is particularly dependent upon tables. To supply these was partly the object of Part iv--'the whiche ferthe partie in special shal shewen a _table of the verray moeving of the mone from houre to houre_, every day and in every signe, after thyn almenak; _upon which table ther folwith a canon_, suffisant to teche as wel the _maner of the wyrking of that same conclusioun_, as to knowe in oure orizonte with which degree of the zodiac that the mone ariseth in any latitude; and the arising of any planete after his latitude fro the ecliptik lyne.' The opening words of the same Conclusion are--'Knowe by thyn almenak the degree of the ecliptik of any signe in which that the planete is rekned for to be:' (p. 221). This is easily said; but I suppose that it was not so easy in olden times to know off-hand the exact position of a planet. It must have been shewn by tables,