Along the western horizon we recognize our old friends Virgo, Corvus, and Leo, while high in the northwest is Ursa Major, head downward, and directly in the north Ursa Minor, standing on the end of his tail, poised like an acrobat on Polaris. The head of Draco shows finely east of the meridian, and low down in the northeast is the “Laconian Key” of Cassiopeia. But that is for another evening. III THE EVENING SKY AT THE AUTUMNAL EQUINOX “When descends on the Atlantic The gigantic Storm-wind of the Equinox, Landward in his wrath he scourges The toiling surges, Laden with sea-weed from the rocks.” Longfellow’s vivid lines reproduce the popular impression of the character of the season when the descending sun again touches the equator, giving the whole world once more days and nights of equal length, before he dips to the south and leaves the northern hemisphere to face the oncoming blasts of winter. There is no superstition more deeply planted than that of the “equinoctial storms.” There _are_ such storms, it is true, but they by no means always burst at the epoch of the Equinox. The readjustment of atmospheric conditions goes on gradually, and there is often, just at the equinoctial moment, a spell of serene weather that can hardly be matched at any other season of the year. The atmosphere, recovered from the excessive heats of summer, possesses a quality of softness and “misty fruitfulness” that tranquillizes the spirit and makes nature doubly charming. It is the late afternoon of the year, when life, refreshed by the siestas of summer, resumes its activity, and the heavens no less than the face of the earth greet the eye with a smile of divine beauty.