वेदों की प्राचीनता एवं काल-निर्णय / ओरायन (लोकमान्य बाल गंगाधर तिलक - खगोलीय वैदिक शोध)

THE ARCTIC REGIONS. 55
and night of which will together never exceed twenty-four hours.
The long night will always be shorter than six months and longer
than 24 hours, and the same will be the case with the long day.
The long night and the long day will mark the two opposite
extremities of the year, the middle of the long day occurring
when the sun is at the summer solstice, and the middle of the
long night when he is at the winter solstice. This triple division
of the year is very important for our purpose, and I shall, there-
fore, illustrate it by a concrete example. Suppose, for instance,
that the observer is so far below the North Pole that instead of a
night of six months, he has a night of 2 months, or, in other words,
the sun goes below his horizon only for two months. As the
winter solstice will fall in the middle of this long continuous
night, we may say that the night will extend a month before
and a month after December 21, when the sun is at the winter
solstice. Corresponding to this long night, there will be a
continuous day of two months, a month before and a month
after June 21, when the sun is at the summer solstice. If these
four months are deducted from the year, there will remain
eight months, and during all these months there will be days and
nights, as in the temperate zone, a nycthemeron, or a day and
a night together, never exceeding, as with us, the ordinary
period of twenty-four hours. This alternation of ordinary days
and nights will commence after the close of the long night in
January, and in the beginning, the night will be longer than
the day; but as the sun passes from the southern into the
northern hemisphere, the day will gain over the night, and,
eventually, after four months, terminate into a continuous day
for two months. At the close of this long day in July, the
alternation of ordinary days and nights will again commence,
the day in the beginning being longer than the night, but