Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1880-05-28
STAR STUDY.
FINAL MEETING OF THE STAR CLUB.
One Hundred and Twenty Five Stars-WOrk
Done by the observation-disclosures
Now Visible In the Evening
Balances, Scorpion
and the Archer,

and the Archer
ETC.. etc.
The closing meeting of the Star club
was held at the Young Mems Christian
association rooms last evening.
We present the remarks of Mr..
J. P. McCaskey, showing what has
been done, presenting brief deserip-
ton of the consultations now above
the horizon III the early evening, and COM
pletins the list with the last signs of the
zodiac as originally proposed, thus max
ing the circuit of the heavens. He spoke
as follows
Three months have passed since our last
meeting, a longer Interval than was antici-
pated at the time that meeting was held.
Certain consultations then on the eastern
horizon at nine o'clock are now at that
hour upon the meridian overhead. During
that time the Earth has swept through one
fourth of it's mighty orbit about the Sun,
and, all unconscious of motion, We have
traversed distance in space of nearly one
hundred and fifty millions of miles.
AS the great globe has thus moved stead
lily onward with fright!ul velocity-its
radius vector passing over equal spaces i'll
equal times with the unfailing certainty OF
arthmetic-the angle of its axis with the
SUMS ray has day by day, been constantly
decreasing for our northern hemisphere, 50
that our star list, suspended amid the
SHOWS and naked branches of February, is
resumed for same final work amid summer
heat, blooming flowers, green fields and
luxuriant foliage ofa May that seems twin
sister of July.
1t has been the transition from winter
to summer, but during that interval the
Star club has not been inactive. The
Plant club has taken up, under the efficient
lead OF Mr.. BurrOwes, another and most
| profitable branch of study. Without at
tempting to teach anything exhaustively.
much systematic work has been done u
number of formal papers have been read l.;
| there has been instruction i'll the practical
analysis of plants and the leading fea-
lures of this delightful science have been
so presented. that, while all Of us have ac-
| quired more or less knowledge through at
tendance here, there are those who will
look back to these evenings with gratiiica-
ton as among the most profitable of their
lives, if it shall chance that here their i'll
terest in the study of plants and trees was
for the first time aroused, or at least given
practical direction.
In some measure, also, out of the live
interest felt in the work Of these classes,
there has grown up, within these months
4 society more permanent in character and
one which promises to be more tlr-reach-
ing in it's influence than either Star club
or Plant club.
| The purpose of this latter flourishing Or
ganizatiOn is the study of nature through
the aid of that wonderful inStru-
ment, the Compound Microscope. Its his
tory is briefly this: a young man of Ian
! caster, wide-awake and energetic-with a
genuine desire for knowledge and a genius
the University of Pennsylvania became
and upon graduation brought with him
from Philadelphia a fine instrument for
use in his professional studies.
The examination of objects by its aid
but famed the flame of interest that had
been partly aroused here and, ut the sug-
gestion of one of our number, the Lancas
ter Scientific club, comprising, five mem
bers, was organized and is now L chartered
corporation. The purpose of this club was
the purchase and fitting up OF a suitable
room for use by the Lancaster Microscop-
zeal society, which has since been organ
lied and is already in good working cOndi-
ton. This society had at its organization,
three months ago, but seven Instruments,
three of them belonging to Individual mem-
bers. The number of high-grade miscro-
scopes already in hand or ordered is now
Mirteen, with fair prospect of steady in
crease, as people learn to know what /,
source of unfailing interest and delight
this intrument may become to any thought
full man or woman.
Why has this work been done? We are
not scientists: perhaps none of Us ever
dream of such worthy distinction ; certain
ly not he who addresses you. We are not
even specialists. But, as we have learned
to enjoy music and poetry. painting and
sculpture, literature, elOquence and the
dramatic art-so VIC are learning more and
more to enjoy the perfect work OF God in
nature. 1t matters not whether these
wonders are discerned by the unaided
vision, or revealed by the telescope, or by
the marvellous lenses of the microscope
something of them We have learned, more
we mean to know, and that while life shall
last. And it needs only that others about
us shall learn what enjoyment there is in
the use of the compound microscope to
grow as enthusiastic in admiration of it
as are, even now, the members of our Mi
crOscOpical society.
SO much for the interregnum of the Star
club. Let us turn for a few minutes to the
work of its closing session.
Among the prominent consultations
now visible at nine o'clock i'll the evening,
east of the meridian overhead, we have,
beginning at the extreme north and comin.,,
southwark, Cepheus, whose two brightest
stars, Alderamin and Alphirk, are nearly
on straight line from Deneb, the head of
the Cross, to the North Star; CassiopHia,
which now shows the chair" or the
struggling "W," low down in the north
eastern sky the head and greater part of
the body of the Dragon, the tail of which
extends beyond the meridian, between the
two Dippers ; the Swan, or Northern
Cross, containing the bright star Deneb
the Harp, with it's bright star Vega, which
may be readily identified by the regular
parallelOgram of faint stars near it the
Eagle, nearly due east, identified by its
straight line of three stars, the middle one
Affair being of the first magnitude Her.
cules, whose foot is on the head of the
Dragon and his head near that of Ophi-
uchus, known also as Serpentarius, some
forty degrees farther south-these two
consultations, Hercules and Ophiuchus,
which includes the Serpent, occupying
nearly all the large space between Bootes
on the west, the Dragon and the Harp on
the north, the Eagle and one or two un-
important star groups on the east, and the
Balances and Scorpion on the south and
southeast.
| These two last-named consultations are
| the only ones of the zodiac that remain tn