The herald and mail. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1873-188?, 1875-08-13
A BIG SHOW OF PLANETS.

Jupiter, Mars. Saturn and Venus Al in Sight-
TheT JoInt appearance For TA5s Engage
| Hent OnIn"
Not often do the starry heavens show
us four strongly-shining bright planets
in one night, but this has been for some
time past the position of Jupiter, Mars,
Saturn and Venus. First comes into
view that giant planet-that vast orb,
whose diameter is eleven times and his
volume about / 800 times that of our
own globe-Jupiter, the planet of the
mighty cloud envelopes, whose contin-
ued overshadowing of the planet himself
has led astronomers to doubt if tele-
scopic vision has ever yet really pene-
trated these enormous layers of vapor to
the surface of the planet itself. Jupiter
is seen soon after dark almost directly
In the zenith-his position at O'Clock
beng little west and southof it; and his
slow and majestic sweep around the sun,
which requires twelve of our years,
scarcely better comports with his vast
dimensions than does his apparent jour-
ney every night through the skies of
earth. He sets not far from midnight.
Proctor believes Jupiter to be still a
mass of seething internal volcanic fire,
giving out heat Ike a sun, and having
but very slight crust cooled as yet,
and that subject to continual fiery out
bursts and overhows; while the vast
cloud belts, thousand miles deep, are
either partly of volcanic origin, or are
discharging upon the planet itself such
floods of sulphur. charged rain as we
cannot imagine.
Mars next comes in sight. He rises
red away in the southern part of the
western horizon soon after dusk, and by
9 o'clock is a conspicuous object, well
up in the southern heavens, and easily
distiDguishable by his ruddy hue. It is
a good time to scan Mars through a good
telescope, for it will be two years before
he is again in so favorable a position as
he has been in for the last month, and
will be for a little time longer. The
bright ster of the ruddy hue that comes
up almost in the southeast soon after
dark, is the neighbor world which of all
the planetary system has presented the
most interesting field for astronomical
study, and best rewarded such studies.
1t is pretty definitely decided that this
ruddy hue is due to some quality or
characteristic of his soil Mars, a small
er plant than earth, presents q number
of features that seem to warrant the
conclusion that his more general laws
and features are something akin to those
of our own world. He has an atmos-
phere he has his season of winter and
summer-the region of snow and ice
around the southern pole, annually and |
vlslbly decreasing and increasing in
what may be summer and winter. There |
are On that distant world oceans and |
continents /; this much at least is GER
tain. Not such oceans as the Atlantic |
atet FFcitic, but strange, bottle, shaped |
eeas, OF no kextent compared with |
sarth's greatest. Wherffe>>they are ever
frozen or not nobody on earth yet |
knows but it is Mr.. Proctor's belief !
that Mars and other planets than ours,
has gone far past his period of greatest |
life, and is fast approaching, if he be
not already entering, the cold and life |
less condition of such bodies as our
moon, whose eternal heat is exhausted
Later, rising wan and far, pale but
luminous ghost of planet in the east
ern sky, comes up great Saturn-the
ringed world. This, on some accounts,
is the most interesting study of all the
planets chiefly because of the mobility
and uncertainty of its occasionally shift
ing shape, and because of its giant IL
Illuminated rings and its eight attendant
moons. It's enormous distance also in
vests it with a certain interest which
would be wanting in a near object.
It is ascertaiDed that it's density does
not exceed that of water and the prob
abilities seem to favor the conclusion
that Saturn is still a globe of molten
matter-a world of liquid fire. Its as
pect seen on a clear night through O
good glass, as the great lennon colored
planet, girdled with its vast elliptic
rings, goes sailing silently across the
field of vision, is beautiful and interest
ing beyond that of any other.
Much later-in fact the early dawn Of
the mOrning-Venus comes resplend-
emily into view. Most brilliant of all
the planets to us, because she is nearer
to us and to the sun, this remarkable
sister world, nearest and apparently
most like our own world, is never more
brilliant, never more beautiful, then
when, as the morning star, she sheds the
lustre of her golden (but borrowed)
beams upon the earth in the stiffness of
the clear morning. Venus will probably
always be a difficult object to study,
because of her proximity to the sun, but
it is found that there are reasons for be-
lieving some of her mountains to be
equal in height to the highest of our
own world