St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1884-07-12

he catches sight Of another faintly
shining planet circling around the sun
much nearer than the first. 1t is Nep-
tune Then Saturn with its rings slowly
energies to view: next gigantic Jupiter
rolls into sight: then that swarm of tiny
worlds, the asteroids; and then ruddy
Mars; :fter which our earth, with its
attendant moon, turns its round, spotted
face to his view. Venus and Mercury
and the teeming millions of meteors
that crowd the neighborhood of the sun
appear in turn, and finally the voyager
from outer space beholds the whole
solar system glowing with light and
beauty before him.
As the microscopic, by means of his
powerful lenses, which, in effect, enable
him to bring the object he is studying
exceedingly close to his eye, sees dull
speck enlarge into a wonder-world of
minute creation. SO our man upon a
comet, merely by approaching close 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 spectacle that mi ght make an
angel exclaim with astoni>hment and
delight. From the cold and darkness
and lonesomeness Of space the wander
ing comet has borne him into the glare
and hustle of a solar system. He cannot
doubt that if his celestial courser had
carried him into the neighborhood of
some other star he would have beheld
scene equally or perhaps even more
wonderful.
And now the comet enters the solar
system and rushes headiong in among
the planets toward its center of attrac-
ton, the sun. Agreat 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 faint cloudy object it becomes
a blazing meteor. throwing out behind
it glowing train that stretches like a
conflagratiOn 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 reeliny planets shrink before
The Specter of the skies.
1t must make the blood of the man
upon the comet tingle when he per-
ceives the terror and astonishment that
his fiery courser inspires among the
worlds he passes swiftly in his flight.
What if there should be collision?
But luckily for him all gates are wide
open, and he has aclear 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 giant
planet which is just being born out of
the chaotic elements of an extinguished
sun. He has 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 equators might serve
as a race track for Weston and Rowell
and the other go-as-you-please pedes-
trians.
What wonderful sights may he not
behold upon Mars, a world that has
advanced in its planetary development
many ages beyond the earth, and to
whose inhabitants some astronomers
have not hesitated TO ascribe achieve
ments that would be as impossible to
the descendants of Adam as the
bridging of the Atlantic Ocean.
He can obtain y most striking view
of this living earth and its dead COM
rade. the moon-the one whirling
swiftly upon its axis and enjoying the
rapid succession of day and night; its
waters sparkling in the sunshine; Its
green prairies and forests glowing with
beauty: cities do:ting its surface; a
atmosphere surrounding
it, vegetation covering the slopes of its
and its oceans. as we'll as
its continents, filled with a profusion of
life from its luXuriant equator to its
snow-capped poles; the other hanging
almost motiOnlessc upon its axis, a
worn-out world, without air. without
water, without vegetation, without life.
only a desert expanse 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
glare of the sun without
the shadow of cloud or tree to hide
it. And these two worlds, presenting
so complete contrast, he beholds
chained together by the resistiess power
Of gravitation, their distance apart
being, as astronomical measures 60,
but the merest 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
yazers, and possibly he will discover
hat the planets beauty. like that of
he amorous goddess whose name it
,ears, is only skin deep. We cannot
,uess what discoveries he might make |
lpon Mercury, the inmost planet Of all,
which braves the sun st close quarters,
fol