The new dominion. [volume] (Morgantown, W. Va.) 1876-1904, 1884-06-07
solar system glowing with light and
beauty before him.

As the ullcfO>copiSt- ny means OF MS
powerful lenses, which, in effect. enable
him to bring the object he is studying
exceedingly close to his eye, sees dull
speck enlarge intoa wonder-world of
minute creation. so our man upon a
comet, merely by approaching clese TO
the solar system. has seen a twinkling
star enlarge into blazing sun. and out
OF its rays emerge a crowd of worlds,
basking in its heat and light and pre-
senting a spectacle that might make an
angel exclaim with astonishment and
delight. From the cold and darkness
and lonesomeness Of space the wander
ing comet has borne him into the glare
and hustle of solar system. He cannot
doubt that if his celestial courser had
carried him into the neighborhood of
scene equally or perhaps even more
wonderful.
And now the comet enters the solar
system and rushes headlong in among
the planets toward its center of attrac-
ton, the sun. A great change gradually
takes place in its appearance. Perhaps
the comets rider could tell just how
and why it occurs, but astronomers
upon the earth have never Yet been able
satisfactorily to explain it. At any rate
it begins to assume fiery aspect.
From a faint cloudy object it becomes
blazing meteor, throwing out behind
it glowing train that stretches like a
coniiagration across the sky, and adds
millions upon millions of miles to its
length as it approaches the sun. Now,
indeed,
The comet he is on his way,
And singing rs he flies;
The reeling planets shrink before
The specter OF the skies.
1t must make the blood of the man
upon the comet Jingle when he per-
ceivcs the terror and establishment that
his fiery courser inspires among the
worlds he passes swiftly in his flight.
What ifthere should be a collision
But luckily for him all gates are wide
open, and he has clear road, this John
Gilpin of the skies.
As he darts across the orbits of the
planets, supposing the direction of the
comets motion not to be greatly in
clined to the general plane of the sys-
tenn, he is able to study the aspect of
the various worlds. Terrestrial astron-
omers can never have such views as he
gets of those outposts OF the solar sys-
tenn, Uranus and Neptune. He obtains,
perhaps, an insight into the nature and
constitution of the splendid rings that
encircle Saturn, to possess which Cali
leo or Herschel would almost have bar
tered life itself. He perceives in Jupiter,
far more clearly than we are able to
do with our greatest telescopes, the
marvellous phenomena of II giant
planet which is just being born out of
the chaotic elements of an cNtiuguished
sun. He has a close view of some of
the throng of minute planets that cir
culate between Jupiter and Mars -
planets which are so small. some of
them, that their cquators might serve
as race track for Weston and Rowell
and the other go-as-you-pleasc pedcs-
TRANS.
What wonderful sights may he not
behold upon Mars, a world that has
advanced i'll its planetary development
many ages beyond the earth, and to
whose Inhabitants some astronomers
have not hesitatcd 10 ascribe achieve
ments that would be as impossible TO
the descendants of Adam as the
bridging of the Atlantic Ocean.
He can obtain most striking view
of this living earth and its dead COM
radc, the moon-the one whirling
swiftly upon IFS axis and enjoying the
rapid succession of day and night; its
waters sparkling in the sunshine; its
green prairics and forests glowing with
beauty; cities dotting it,. surface; n
cloud -pcopled atmosphere surrounding
it, vegetation covering the slopes Of its
mountains; and its oceans, as well as
its continents, filled with a profusion of
life from its l,,xufiant equator to its
snow-capped poles; the other hanging
almost motionlesss upon its axis, a
WORKOUT world, without air, without
water, without vegetation. without life,
only a desert cxpanse of barren rocks;
its naked mountains: its silent vol
canoes; its untenanted plains; and its
old empty sea bottoms presenting a
scene of utter desolation, turned to the
untempered glare of the sun without
the shadow of a cloud or n tree to hide
it. And these two worlds, presenting
so complete a contrast. he beholds
chained together by the resistless power
of gravitation, their distance apart
being, as astronomical measures 90,
but the mercst step.
If he passes close to Venus, he may
be able to penetrate the mask of clouds
which has ever hidden the face Of the
Planet of Love from terrestrial star
gazers, and possibly he will discover
that. the planets beauty, like that Of
the amorous goddess whose name it
bears, Is only skin deep. We cannot
guess what discoveries he might make
upon Mercury, the inmost planet of all,
which braves the sun at close quarters,
for our telescopes give us little hint as
to its condition.
And at last the comet is face to face
with the terrors of its perihclion
passage. 1t must swing around the
sun, which from q little star has now.
grown to a gigantic orb of fire, SO close
as almost to touch it. Long before he
approached SO near the comets rider
beheld astonishing appendages about
the sun. Instead of smooth, dazzling
white globe, he saw the sun ringed with
scarlet flames. while shooting out on
every side, hundreds of thousands, and
in some cases, perhaps even millions
Of miles, were huge fans and shafts Of
wonderful light, like fiery spokes
railiating from the glowing hub Of the
solar system.
And now, as the comet darts closer
in, he sees the whole surface of the
melting pot of the elements surging
and swirling in the mighty rush of con-
tending solar forces. People have lost