The Wellington enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 1867-188?, 1879-12-18
ABOUT THE STARS.

ABOUT THE STARS.
Harry Newman is bright little boy
about twelve years old, who lives with
his father and mother in q fine old New
England town, where the trees are so
tall and grand their foliage forms beau
tiful arches over every street. Harry's
father teaches astronomy in q large
college near by, and there is nothing
Harry likes better than to listen to
stories about the stars from his papa.
The way he came to like them so much
was this:
One pleasant afternoon last August,
Mr.. Newman and Harry set out for
walk into the country. When they had
walked on for long while, MIR. New
man said: "It is time for us to turn
back Harry; the sun will 90 down now
before we reach home"
As they turned their faces homeward
Harry said: "Papa, does the sun real
ly go down, or didn't you tell me once
that the earth moves and the sun stands
stillP'
"You are right, my boy" said Mr..
Newman; "the sun stands still, and the
earth and the other planets move around
it. A long time ago people thought the
earth was a great nat plain and that
the sun and all the stars moved around
it once in twenty-four hours"
so, papar' cried Harry, show could
they think the earth was flat when they
could see how the lower part of a ship
goes out of sight before the top does,
as you showed me last week at Old
Orchard Beach?''
"It does seem strange" said Mr..
Newman, "but it was true, and the
man who first declared that he believed
it round was laughed at by everybody
for holding such an absurd idea. The
earth turns round on her axis, and this
makes day and night, you know. Then
it goes around the sun once year, and,
by changing its position at different
times, gives what we call our seasons.
But before we talk more about the
earth, will tell you something about
the sun, if you want to hear it,
81 do" said Harry, every much"
"Well," continued his father, "you
will hardly believe me when l tell you
that the sun is so far off that if you
could take passage in car going from
here there at the rate of thirty miles an
hour, and should start next New Year 8
day, 1880, you would not reach the sun
I'LL luC OA ChO yCoA SSAo Rco
years from the time you start-in other
words, the sun is about go ,0O0, 900 of
miles away"
"Whewr' said Harry, 81 should
have to be as old as Methuselah."
"And the sun is SO large" continued
Mr.. Newman, "that in this same car
you would be ten years in going around
it, while you would travel around the
earth at that rate in about q month. 1t
takes 1000, 900 earths to make one sun,
or, if you call good-sized orange the
sun, the earth would be no larger in
proportion than the point of PIN"
"What is the sun made OFF" asked
Harry.
"The best astronomers" answered
Mr.. Newman, "say that the whole in
side is kind of hot gas, and that the
surface is great ocean of fire which is
all the time boiling and seething and
sending up huge jets of flame thou
sands of miles high-the most glorious
fireworks one could dream of. If a
portion of this mass should be blown
over the United States at the rate at
which it moves on the sun, it would
only be thirty seconds in rushing from
the Gulf of st. Lawrence to the Gulf of
Mexico, leaving the whole country not
only a mass of ruin, but of glowing
yapor, while the ashes of New York,
Boston and Chicago would only be one
small cloud. You will get a little
idea of how hot it is up on the sun when
1 tell you that if the earth were made
of ice, and the whole heat of the sun
put upon it, it would take but two
minutes to melt it; two minutes lenger
to boil the water which it would then
consist of, and thirteen minutes more
to convert it all into steam"
"Or said Harry, 81 never would
have believed that yellow ball over
there in the sky could be so big, or so
far of, or SO hot as you say; but l don t
see how you find out all these things"
By-and-by," continued his father,
"when you grow older. you will under
stand some Of the wonderful ways in
which astronomers make these discov.
cries."
"I wish 1 were old enough now"
said Harry. ''But, papa, if the sun is
so large, how big is the moon? That
looks about the same size."
"Why, my dear boy, it would take
sixty millions of our moons to make
the sun! 1t looks so much larger be-
| cause it is so much nearer us. 1t is
| Z4U,UOU uS, ebho lO-
wolves around us once in a month, as
we do around the sun once q year. A
curious thing about the moon is that no
one ever has seen the other side of it,
and many astronomers have conject-
ured that the other side is like the
earth and that people live there; but it
is clearly known now that there is
neither air nor water there; SO, OF
course, no one could live on the moon.
will show you little how the surface
of the moon looks as seen through a
telescope"
! As Mr.. Newman spoke, he picked up
handful of pebbles from the ground
and threw them into a soft bed of mud
which they had just reached. "These
pebbles sunk in the mud" said he,
"look very much like the fiat craters
in the middle of the mountains of the
moon, these little mounds of mud
around them represent the .cnrious
shapes of the mountains themselves
One of these days will show them tc
you through my telescope, and some O.
the planets too"
"How many did you say there were
papap" asked Harry.
"Seven besides the EARTH" replied
, his father. The one nearest the SUI
is called Mercury. 1t is about one
third the size of the earth and is forty
millions of miles from the sun. Mex
, comes Venus, that beautiful brigh
star you have 30 often seen near sun