To understand the reason of the harvest moon, we will, as before, consider the moon's orbit as coinciding with the ecliptic, because we may then take the ecliptic, as it is drawn on the artificial globe, to represent that orbit. We will also bear in mind, (what has been fully illustrated under the last head,) that, since the ecliptic cuts the meridian obliquely, while all the circles of diurnal revolution cut it perpendicularly, different portions of the ecliptic will cut the horizon at different angles. Thus, when the equinoxes are in the horizon, the ecliptic makes a very small angle with the horizon; whereas, when the solstitial points are in the horizon, the same angle is far greater. In the former case, a body moving eastward in the ecliptic, and being at the eastern horizon at sunset, would descend but a little way below the horizon in moving over many degrees of the ecliptic. Now, this is just the case of the moon at the time of the harvest home, about the time of the Autumnal equinox. The sun being then in Libra, and the moon, when full, being of course opposite to the sun, or in Aries; and moving eastward, in or near the ecliptic, at the rate of about thirteen degrees per day, would descend but a small distance below the horizon for five or six days in succession; that is for two or three days before, and the same number of days after, the full; and would consequently rise during all these evenings nearly at the same time, namely, a little before, or a little after, sunset, so as to afford a remarkable succession of fine moonlight evenings.