But to your question concerning the growth of the sun’s path, how one can most clearly discern it, I can scarcely give an answer so precise as not to be wrong in part; for the sun’s path does not wax at the same rate in all parts of the earth. I can, of course, answer according to what I have found in the writings of men who have treated the subject thoroughly, and it is generally believed that their words come very near the truth. I have already told you how many hours there are in a night and day and gave the number as twenty-four.[170] I have indicated the length of each hour in stating that three hours pass while the sun moves across one division of the sky. Now there are some other little hours called _ostensa_,[171] sixty of which make one of those that I mentioned earlier. It seems to me quite likely that, as far north as we are, the sun’s path waxes five of these little hours in a day and as much less than six as a twelfth part of a little hour. And as to the growth of the sun’s path it seems most reasonable to me that it waxes three-fourths of these hours toward the east and the west and the remaining fourth in height toward the zenith. South of us, however, this reckoning will fail; for north of us the increase is greater and to the south less than we have just stated; and the farther south, the greater is the difference, and the sun more nearly overhead. Footnote 170: See Brenner’s edition, 20. Footnote 171: Error for _ostenta_; the _ostentum_, computed at one-sixtieth of an hour, seems to appear first in the writings of Rabanus Maurus (ninth century). ------------------------------------------------------------------------ VII THE SUBJECT OF THE SUN’S COURSE CONTINUED