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Ephemeris – Equinoxes

Ephemeris

in astronomy, a table giving the position of a heavenly body from day to day, so that observers may know where to find it. The name is also applied to an astronomical almanac containing a collection of such tables.

Ephraim

the younger son of Joseph, and the founder of one of the 12 tribes of Israel. When the Israelites left Egypt the Ephraimites numbered 40,500, and their possessions in the very center of Palestine included most of what was afterward called Samaria.

Epidemic

a disease which attacks The Epicurean doctrines were in time ferent places, spreading with great many persons at the same time at difthe first onset, gradually becoming spent rapidity, extremely virulent and fatal at indulgent and sensuous pleasure.

Epidemic

a disease which attacks many persons at the same time at different places, spreading with great the number. the first onset, gradually becoming spent and feeble, so that the early cases are cuticle or scarf-skin constituting the ex- EPIDERMIS, in human anatomy, the smallpox, and influenza are epidemics, and other infectious diseases are among the number.

Epiglottis

a cartilaginous valve which partly closes the aperture of the EPIGRAM, a short poem of a pointed larynx.

Ease

a disease that at some particular time and place attacks great numbers of the lower animals, just as an epidemic attacks man. Pleuro-pneumonia is often an epizoötic, as was also the rinderpest.

See EPIDEMIC.

Epsom

a town in the county of Surrey, England, 15 miles S. W. of London, formerly celebrated for a mineral spring, from the water of which the wellknown Epsom salts were manufactured. The principal attraction Epsom can now boast of is the grand race meeting held on the Downs, the chief races being the Derby and Oaks.

Equatorial Current

a current in the ocean which crosses the Atlantic from Africa to Brazil, having a breadth varying from 160 to 450 nautical miles.

Its waters are cooler by 3° or 4° than those of the ocean under the line. Its effect, therefore, is to diminish the heat of the tropics.

Equatorial Telescope

a telescope so mounted as to have a motion in two planes at right angles to each other; one parallel to the axis of the earth, and the other to the equator. Each axis has a graduated circle, one for measuring declination and the other right ascension.

Equinoctial

the same as the celestial equator. The equinoctial points are those in which the equinoctial and the ecliptic intersect. Equinoctial time is time reckoned from the moment in each year when the sun passes the vernal equinox. This instant is selected as a convenient starting-point of a uniform reckoning of time for the purposes of astronomical observers.

Equinoctial Gale

a gale popиlarly supposed to occur at the time of the spring or autumn equinox. Long-continued observations, however, are decisive against this popular belief.

Equinoxes

PRECESSION OF THE, the motion of the equinoxes along direction of the earth's axis of rotation, caused by the attraction of the moon and direction of the earth's axis of rotation, the earth. the earth.