Morning journal and courier., 1883-01-31


 condition in which the earth now is. This conclusion, think, is warranted by the ap- pearRnce of Jupiter's surface, which contains many more conspicuous markings and spots than are seen on Saturn, and some of these spots remain almost unchanged for years. An ordinary telescope generally shows only two dark belts running along on each side of the planets equator, few spots, and the bluish tinge of the surface around the poles. The Princeton telescope shows that the whole huge ball is covered. and, in the neighborhood of the equator, crowded with belts, spots and streaks. Jupiter's atmos- phere. like Saturn's, is filled with clouds which present 8 most picturesque appear ance. regretted very much that the famous red spot which appeared on Jupiter in the summer of 1878 has faded almost to invisi- bility within few months. This giant tele- scope would, perhaps, have thrown some light upon the nature of the spot. But I saw enough to convince me that Jupiter has not yet developed into a habitable globe. With Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, it forms family of giant worlds which will in time bloom with life. That will be the age of great worlds, as this is the age of little worlds. Life will there, perhaps, assume forms of which we have never dreamed.
 'swhen the old hulk we tread ahan be wreck,
 A slag cinder. drifting through the sky,
 without its crew of fools"
 Irrespective of the suggestions which it conveyed, Jupiter was a superb object, worth B long journey and the loss of whole nights sleep to see. It hung before the eye, an enormous globe-not fiat disk, but round and full, and percephbly bulged in the equa- toriaI region through the effect of it's rapid rotation. It was like taking station of in space and watching the earth rotate, only Jupiter rotates much faster than the earth. In an hour you could plainly perceive how the great planet had rolled on it's axis. spots that had been near the edge being advanced toward the center, while new spots had come into sight along the edge of the ball. The shades, tints and markings on the huge globe were indescribable. On each side of the equator was great belt, the northernmost one being pinkish red, while the southern belt was grayish. A delicate shade of pink was the prevailing color on both sides of the equator, and this beautiful background was diversified with light and dark spots and streaks. Rows of spots resembling the snowy white 'sthunderheads" that are often seen poking above the horizon as the advance guard of a summer storm fecked the surface in some places. A man must be destitute of all power of imagination not to see in some of these spots unmistakable clouds, and in the darker spots adjoining them the shadows which they cast. Beyond the irregular main belts which seemed to border the equatorial regions were other belts and spots without
 
 but around the poles the surface was shad- owed with 8 tint recalling the lighter shades of fine steel engraving. At times, when the air was particularly steady, all the deli cate details of the planets surface came out exquisitely defined. Once Professor Young put on magnifying power of LAO diame- ters, which means that the surface of the planet was magnif1ed more than two million times! The atmosphere was not steady enough to give good definition with such a power, but the gigantic and startling appear ance of the planet, distorted and blurred by the tremendous magnifying, as it seemed to the observer (by the unsteadiness of the air, in fact), and the fickering forms of the belts and spots showing dimly like huge shadows, made sight that shall never forget.
 Below the well-known Belt of Orien everybody who watches the brilliant skies of our winter nights must have noticed hazy- locking star. It is the famous Great Nebula. Very little telescopic power is required to show it, as 8 luminous cloud through which stars are shining. But it is difficult to con vey to one who has not beheld it with his own eyes an idea of the magnificent appear ance of this nebula when seen with such 8 as that at Princeton. The whole field of view, with the higher powers, is filled with 8 shining green haze broken up into fooculent masses, delicate clouds of light, sprays and wisps. It is sprinkled with stars which glitter like diamonds in brides veil. It looks as though you could scatter it with breath, but it fills a space, in comparison with which the solar system is mere point. Many astronomers believe it consists of the stuff of which suns and worlds are made, and soms think appearances can be detected in it which indicate that it is at this moment being moulded into suns. One of the :riumphs achieved by the late Henry Draper was the photograph1ng of this nebula, and his photographs may enable future astronomers to determine just what ,hanges are taking place, and whether in this strange object we really do behold the slow of 8 new domain of solar sys- ems. There is black gap at one point in he nebula, and in this gap shine the four 'tars constituting the well known trapezium. There are two other stars near these which mall telescopes do not show. This is the central point of interest in the nebula It 'eems clear that those stars are not there by accident, but that there is 8 real connection between them and the nebula. They appear, IS Prof. Young remarked, to be feeding up- ,n the nebula.
 sProm the Great Nebula we turned to Si- .ius, or the Dog Star the brightest of all the 'tars. It is easy to believe that the stars are iuns when one looks at Sirius through two loot object glass. It dazzles the eye like en thousand stars combined into one. Yet man must have faith in mathematics to be- ieve that Sirius is sun at least a thousand imes Rs great as our sun. If the earth were !5 near to Sirius as it is to the sun it would pc burned to a cinder in @ moment. But, to ne, the most interesting thing about this yreat star was it's mysterious companion, the discovery of whose existence is one If the triumphs of modern telescopes There it shone with a dull, pale, ghostly fight, almost hidden in the overpowering avs of the star. In bulk 1t almost equals RTFI oT1d mother like two giants who have grappled lpon an icy footing. Prof. Young says the is rapidly approaching Sirius. But what is it? We can hardly call it a sun, or 1t has not the light of sun. It may be he smber of a sun that is dying out. It may ,e one of those strange dark bodies with which space, it is believed, abounds, and which, having fallen within the attraction of Sirius, is dogging it through the sky. You ,now that the stars are all in motion-Sirius s the spectroscope shows, is moving away rom us at the rate of twenty miles second so that it is easy to conceive that the star nay have come across it's dusky companion n this way. The laws of gravitation will lever let them part, though the distance be- veen them may vary and so the greatest l un of which we have any knowledge must 1 70 swinging through space with it's skele- l on comrade until it itself becomes cold | nd dark. The greatest interest for | IS in all this lies in the possibility that our | wn sun may at some time, as 1t journeys | n, fall within the attraction of one of these | ark cosmical bodies and so come to have a | ompanion like Sirius. The disturbing force | f body, having @ mass equal to, or greater | han that of the sun, and brought into the | of the solar system, would | reduce changes in the motions of the plan ts which miehs render the earth uninhabita- Ie
 "I cannot stop to tell what else the great | slescope shows in the star depths; how it eveals shining beds of stars in the Milky | Way; how, when turned upon nebulous peck, it sometimes shows the astonished bserver veritable ball of stars, an innum rable multitude collected into a globular luster, and at other times reveals thousands stars arranged in spraying lines and pirals, and all odd shapes. When visit the observatory the moon was not In avorable phase for telescopic study, ut know what the big telescope would o with the moon. It would reveal ae ragged mountains and craters, the table Inds, like those splendid ones surrounding le Bay of Rsinbows, the peaks and the old cean beds with 8 distinotness that would Iake the startled observer fancy some su- power had suspended him direct above that old worn-ou world preparatory l , letting him drop down to perish in one of s airless and Eaterless wildernesses, or to 3 battered and crushed in the rocky bottom one of it's extinct craters. If had such telescope, fear though bound to this ter ,strial aust-mo should spend my life in :her, grander worldsn