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CHAPTER XXI, 3-6.
399
3. The midday shadow is written', may its end be good!
4. I write the indication of the Adzêrin (afternoon) ? period of the day; may it be well and fortunate by the help of God (yazdân)!
5. When the day is at a maximum (pavan afzūno), and the sun comes unto the head of Cancer, and one's shadow becomes six feet and two parts ', he makes it the Adzêrîn period (gâs). 6.
was about A. D. 1000), and calculating the latitude from each of the thirteen different lengths of shadow, the mean result is 32° 1' north latitude, which is precisely the position assigned to Yazd (the head-quarters of the small remnant of Zoroastrians in Persia) on some English maps, though some foreign maps place it 15' or 20' farther south. With regard to the rough nature of this mode of observation it may be remarked that, as the lengths of the shadows are noted only to half a foot, there is a possible error of a quarterfoot in any of them; this would produce a possible error of 2° 4 in the midsummer observation of latitude, and of 39' in the midwinter one; or a mean possible error of 1° 22' in any of the observations; so that the possible error in the mean of thirteen observations is probably not more than 6', and the probable error is even less, provided the data have been assumed correctly.
Reading nipist, but only the first and last letters are legible in M6, and the middle letter is omitted in K20.
* See Bund. XXV, 9.
· The word sar, 'head,' usually means the end,' but it must be here taken as 'the beginning;' perhaps, because the zodiacal signs are supposed to come head-foremost.
• What portion of a foot is meant by bahar, 'part,' is doubtful. It can hardly be a quarter, because two quarters' would be too clumsy a term for a half. But it appears from $$ 5-7 that the shadow, necessary to constitute the AQzêrîn period, is taken as increasing uniformly from six feet and two parts to fourteen feet and two parts, an increase of eight feet in six months, or exactly one foot and one-third per month, as stated in the text. And, deducting this monthly increase of one foot and one-third from the seven and a half feet shadow at the end of the first month, we have six feet and one-sixth remaining for the shadow at the
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