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SHAYAST LA-SHAYAST.
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Every thirty days it always increases one foot and one-third, therefore about every ten days the reckoning is always half a foot', and when the sun is at the head of Leo the shadow is seven feet and a half. 7. In this series every zodiacal constellation is treated alike, and the months alike, until the sun comes unto the head of Capricornus, and the shadow becomes fourteen feet and two parts. 8. In Capricornus it diminishes again a foot and onethird; and from there where it turns back, because of the decrease of the night and increase of the day, it always diminishes one foot and one-third every one of the months, and about every ten days the reckoning is always half a foot, until it comes back to six feet and two parts; every zodiacal constellation being treated alike, and the months alike.
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beginning of the month. Hence we may conclude that the two parts' are equal to one-sixth, and each 'part' is one-twelfth of a foot.
' Meaning that the increase of shadow is to be taken into account as soon as it amounts to half a foot, that is, about every ten days. Practically, half a foot would be added on the tenth and twentieth days, and the remaining one-third of a foot at the end of the month.
Both MSS. have 'eight,' but this would be inconsistent with the context, as it is impossible that 'six feet and two parts' can become 'eight feet and a half' by the addition of 'one foot and one-third,' whatever may be the value of the two parts' of a foot.
" Both MSS. have 3 yak-1 pâî, instead of pâî 3 yak-1. • This mode of determining the beginning of the afternoon period is not so clumsy as it appears, as it keeps the length of that period exceedingly uniform for the six winter months with some increase in the summer time. In latitude 32° north, where the longest day is about 13 hours 56 minutes, and the shortest is 10 hours 4 minutes, these observations of a man's shadow make the afternoon period begin about 3 hours before sunset at mid
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