But does some fair reader ask: Who is Anne of Geierstein? Is the book all history? Ask the son of the Earl of Oxford, and he will tell you that Anne was the fair maiden who rescued him from a perilous rock the night they were lost near the castle of Geierstein; that she was with the embassy on her way to visit her father; that she again rescued him from imprisonment and death; and after the fall of the House of Lancaster the Swiss maiden becomes his bride.
“And on her lover’s arm she leant, And round her waist she felt it fold, And so across the hills they went, In that new world, which is the old.”
“But the star of Lancaster,” in the language of Scott, “began again to culminate, and called the banished lord and his son from their retirement, to mix once more in politics, and soon thereafter was fought the celebrated battle of Bosworth, in which the arms of Oxford and his son contributed so much to the success of Henry the Seventh. This changed the destinies of young Oxford and his bride; but it is said that the manners and beauty of Anne of Geierstein attracted as much admiration at the English Court as formerly in the Swiss chalet.”
The source of all our light and heat, although about three millions of miles nearer to us on the 2d of January than it was on the 3d of July last, affords neither the same quantity of light nor heat; and for two reasons: 1. His rays fall on us more obliquely. 2. He does not remain so long above our horizon. On the 1st he rises at 7:24 a. m. and sets at 4:44 p. m., making our day only nine hours and twenty minutes long; and on the 31st rises at 7:11 a. m. and sets at 5:16 p. m., giving us ten hours and five minutes for a day’s length, an increase of forty-five minutes.
Presents the usual phases in order, as follows: First quarter on the 5th, at 4:27 p. m.; full moon on the 12th, at 10:19 a. m.; last quarter on the 20th, at 12:15 a. m.; and new moon on the 27th, at 11:53 p. m., Washington mean time, which is 8 minutes 12.09 seconds slower than “Eastern time,” or the time of the 75th meridian west of Greenwich. The moon is nearest the earth at 11:36 a. m. on the 9th; and most distant from the earth at 6:12 a. m. on the 21st. On the 10th she reaches her greatest elevation, which is 67° 42′ above the horizon in latitude 41° 30′ north.