Clearfield Republican. [volume] (Clearfield, Pa.) 1851-1937, 1881-08-31
CLEARFIELD, Pa, WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 81, 1881

and forgetting that sunsets are not
everywhere and forever. Still, though
have seen and recorded the fact that
sunset is no longer here, let there be
no hasty and premature obituaries
To appreciate seriously these phe
nomenas we must 60 back to the rudi
ments of astronomy and geography
Before We lost the invisible circle, and
fwhilo eudeavoring TO decipher the
horseman and the horse through which
the circle is clearly ascertainable, by
faith and science, let us look around
around our star The first impression
IS that it is round. That is not q
complex idea, but thero are suggest.
ions about It that TO the ordinary mind
are complicated, if not confusing, to
the general experience. To such this
circle and phenomena are mystery.
1t is mystery because above it, IN
ever-contraeting circles, till It runs to
naught at the pole ihesun shines only
portion Of the year, without going
under Within il is horizon for a
part Of the years which never hides
the blessed light, whore our moon and
stars forget to light their lamps, and
where the earth alone seems repairing
to the home of light with "its golden
urn" When the Spring begins, this
favored region has but spot OF con.
tinuous shine, but it grows with the
ever. widening circle from the pole to
the Arctic, until on midsummers day,
the day we left Trondhjem, IL has run
down lines of longitude twenty.three
and-a.hall degrees, or GO 30 North
latitude. There it TREMENDOUSLY ling.
ers and moves TO tho polar regions,
there to make the bright little gem Of
light from which it started,
The other half of this process for
bali year is dedicated to the Antaru.
tic, while night for six months folds
its wing, radiant with strange auroras,
over these regions. These vicissitudes
are as orderly as the seasons Of the
moderate zones. 1t is our experience
which makes them seem eccentric
and this experience gives to the seen
cry, to time, to the clouds and mount.
aims, the fjords and SHOWS, the CLAM
our Of unrcality. We are, so to speak,
inverted. Some sense OF the comic, if
not OF the cosmic, relations we bear to
space and stars and suns comes over us
and tho light we bask in at midnight
is as strange as that (which never was
on sea or land-the CONSERVATION of
the poets dream"
Here are day of days and night of
nights This is plain to the eye, and
il takes ever so slight a reflection TO
understand it fully. 1t is complex,
until we remember that the earth goes
round the sun--a problem which men
have been ready TO defend even unto
death. In going around the sun, the
earth inclines its axis to the plane
in which it moves. If the earth did
not thus "tenderly inclino'--if it stood
stiff and perpendicular, without court
ing the graces-eyery inch Of its sur
loSe Noulu naNo lte HlBhb Hud uuy
equally divided. But. it plays the
erect only twice a year, at the inter.
section of the elliptic and the equator.
These days of absolute equity of dis
tribution are in the Spring and Fall.
But God determined that for half
year our earth should make its bow,
half the time to one and half to the
other pole. The angle of this obei-
sancc of our earth to its plane meas
ures the distance from the pole to the
circle.
1t is q plain conclusion from these
facts that the circle within which we
are moving just now girdles the earth
with only 5000 miles. If we would
make straight march around the
circle we would save oneiourth Of the
journey in miles; and if around whore
we are now at this north cape on n
line of latitude it would be one-hali
less, or one.fourth of the distance
around our globe at the equator. But
our business now is not "around,' - but
down to the latludes nearer home.
S. S. Cox.