The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1891-06-28
STUDY OF THE SKIES.
Continued from Poqe 9.

CONTINUED from Page 81
that you kill a man at tn moment when,
quietly seated in his chair, he has his eyes
open and directed towards bright win
dow. (There is nothing improbable in the
supposition upon planet where all the
citizens are soldiers and kill each other in
all manner of ways at the rate of 100
his eyes, CT should have said that the
hypothesis involves dealing with an
enemyD and you immerse them in
solution of alum; those eyes will
then retain the image of the window with
its transverse bars and its light spaces.
But in normal state of things our eyes
do not retain images-there would be too
many of them, besides. The giant eye of
which We speak holds fast everything it
sees. Its only need is a change of the re-
tina.
Yes, the artificial retina sees more
quickly and better. And by virtue of
property wholly lacking in the human eye.
it penetrates abysses where we do not and
never could see anything. This is, per-
haps its most astonishing faculty.
Place the eye, for example, at the eye
piece of telescope whose object glass
measures thirty centimeters in diameter;
such an instrument is the best for prac-
teal observations.
With this glass Of thirty centimeters di-
ameter and three and one-half meters in
length, we may discover stars to the four
teenth magnitude, that is to say about 49,
600, 900 stars of all kinds.
Now replace our eve by the Photographic
retina. Instantly the most brilliant stars
beat upon the plate and mark their like
nesses there. Five one-thousandths of q
second suffice for star of the first magni-
tude, one one-hundredth for those of the
second. three one-hundredths for those of
the third, and so on, according to the pro-
portions expressed above.
In less than one second the Photographic
eye has seen all that we could perceive
with the naked eye.
But this is as nothing. Stars visible
only through the telescope also come and
beat upon the plate, and thereon inscribe
their images. Those of the seventh mag
nitude take a second and a third to make
their impressions on the plate, those of the
eighth need three seconds, those of the
ninth eight seconds, those of the eleventh
fifty seconds, those of the twelfth require
two minutes, those of the thirteenth i've
minutes, and, finally, those of the four
tenth thirteen minutes.
If we have left our plate exposed for a
quarter of an hour, We shall ind photo
graphed upon it all the region of the sky
towards which the telescope was directed,
all that this region contains, all that we
could have contrived to discover with in
finite difficulty by series of very arduous
and long-continued observations.
But we have merely entered upon the
marvellous.
serve in place of the human eye; it will
penetrate the unknown. Stars invisible
TO us become visible to il. After an ex-
posure of thIrty-three minutes, stars of the
fifteenth magnitude will have finished
their task of impressing the chemical re-
tina and placing there their images
The same instrument which, to the hu-
man eye reveals stars of the fourteenth
magnitude, and which would register
about 40, 600 stars in the entire heavens
dlscloses to the Photographic eye 20,OOO,-
600, including only those of the fifteenth
magnitude. 1t could reach forth to the
sixteenth and throw before the daZzled
admiration of the observer a luminous
maze of 400 900 900 stars
Never before in all the history of man
kind have We had in hand the power to
penetrate so deeply into the abysses of the
Infinite. Photography with its recent i'm
provements takes clear picture of every
star, no matter what its distance and sets
1T down in document that can be studied
at leisure. Who knows if some dav
IN the Photographic views of Venus
or Mars some new methods of ANALYSIS
may not discover to us their inhabitants?
And Its power stretches forth to the infin-
lite. Behold star of the fifteenth or six
tenth, even seventeenth magnitude, a
sun ike our own separated from us by 80
great distance that its light REQUIRES
thousands, perhaps millions OF wears
TO reachi us, notwithstanding its I'M
heard OF velocity of 5000 Kilometres a
second, and this sun lies at such a denth
that Its light, so to speak, reaches us no
longer. The natural eve of man never
would have seen it, and the human mind
never would have guessed its existence
out Tor the implements of this modern
art. And yet this feeble light, come from
GllfflNlanf n mo oa frx,x.
upon the chemical plate which will pre-
serve its picture unalterably.
AND tins star might be of the eighteenth.
or the nineteenth magnitude, and beyond,
so little that the human eve could never
see 1t even aided by the most powerful tel
escopic appliances, flor there will always
be stars beyond our range of visionl. and
yet II will come and hurl its slight ethereal
arrows on the chemical plate set nm 70
await and receive them.
Yes, Its light will have travelled during
mlllions OF years. When il started, the
earth dld not exist. the real earth with its
humanity; there was not single thinking
creature on our planet; the genesis of our
word was IN the process of develonment.
perhaps only in the primordial seas thai
enveioped the globe before the uprising of
the hrst continents, before the primitive
e1el,le MA organisms formed themselves
upon the bosom of the waters, preparing
slowly with the evolutions of future aces
This Photographic plate takes us bacE 70
the past history of the universe. During
the ethereal flight of this ray which comes
To-Day 10 peat upon the plate, all the his
tory of the earth has been accommodated
and IN this history that of human kind is
put single wave, an instant And dur
ing THIS time the history of the distant
sun which photographs itself TODAY has
been accomplished also; perhaps il became
extinct long since, perhaps it is actually
mus TINS new eye, which transports US
across the infinite, enables US at the same
time TO trace the periods of past eternity.
les, many OF these far-away suns that
we are going TO such pains to photograph,
no longer exist. The end of the world has
come to them as il will come TO us; and
the luminous couriers that thew sent ma
before dying, travel forever.
Astronomy plunges US into the insoiuble
mystery OF the infinite and of eternity
and therein lies its grandeur
CAMILLE ET