The morning call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1878-1895, 1892-10-21
THE STARS HE SAW,
Celestial Lights That Guided
Columbus on His Way.

Columbus on His Way.
From the time when Ftolemy explained
his ingenious but erroneous theory of plan
etary motion, until the dawn of truth came
with Copernicus in the fifteenth century,
the mind of civilized man seemed strangely
Indifferent to the study of the heavens, as
If the matter of celestial motions were a
settled question admitting no possibility of
uncertainty or hope of advance.
During this unaccOuntable lull of four
teen eDtures, astronomical records are
few, and modern research is chiefly in
debted 10 Persian. Arabian and Chinese
observers for accounts of the celestial phe-
nomena of medieval times. Fortunately, it
was not followed by retrogression, and the
knowledge acquired by the patient watch
ing and acute reasoning of astronomers in
ancient times was neither lost n0r unappre-
ciated by the learned when the formative
process of European civilization took on a
new phase, and man ventured over the M
known waters Of his own planet. THE
landmarks of the universe" the glimmering z
stars, were his hope and safety; and inevit-
a bly,, his interest in astronomy received an
impetus that has not subsidized up to the
present day.
In no branch Of human Development have
the posi- bilities within the reach OF genius
been more effectively demonstrated than
in this science during the last four centu-
ries
Admirable though were the lab0rs and
assiduity of the early astronomers, limo
charts. Hipparchus and Ptolemy. Still
how little was known to the Genoese ex-
plorer of the friendly stars that guided him
over the strange seas to his far western
goal. P olaris shone as brightly then as
now, and was we'll known TO the Phenicians
as their guiding star that had no motion.
With the SUMS path it was the starting
point of celestial measurement among the
ancients. Hipparchus even knew that the
pole of the heavens was not permanently
fixed near Polaris, but had q slow motion
around the pole of the ecliptic, and that this
variation carried procession of the equ-
noxes.
BY means of the rough circles of Erastos-
themes. afterward improved by Ptolemy,
and the astrolsbs of Hipparchus, the posi-
tions of the heavenly bodies were defined
and measurements made to within one-third
of a degree.
No doubt the astute mariner and explorer,
who awed the disaffected natives of Jamaica
into friendship by foretelling coming
eclipse of the moon March /, 1904. was
learned in all the astronomical science
available at the period. and that the starry
armament was to him familiar picture.
AS IL changes little in a few centuries we
know that the August evening skies Of 1892
reflected the same stellar lights in the
Atlantic waves as now. No doubt Arcturus
revealed its orange tint 10 the west before
twilight had passed just as now, and prob
ably Spica, near the suns path, was a
special object of the mariners attention.
Night brought out the red gleam of
Antares toward the south and Vega and
Altaire glanced on the deck of the Santa
Maria from the eastern heavens.
Midnight brought the constellation of the
Swan to the zenith aud the Pleiades just
above the eastern horizon. Far in the
northeast shone Capella, and soon followed
directly east the Hyades. Orion and the
Twins.
The dog star Sirius, the Sothis Of the
Egyptians, we know was absent from the
scene during the first weeks Of the voyage,
being lost In the suns rays in those days
when telescope observation was unknown.
Before the voyage was ended the entire
starry host 10 within about % degrees of the
South Pole, and tile moon and planets, In
their respective places, were presented to
his view. To Columbus they were but
lamps and landmarks to show him his way
across the watery wastes around him.
Copernicus, then in his twentieth year,
had not yet told tho world that the earth
was a sphere, rotating on its axis in twenty
four hours-as even a few astronomers had
suggested before him-and that the orb Of
day instead of being a subordinate lumin-
ary cucling around the central earth, was
really the primary orb of the solar system.
The numerous improvements and addi-
tions made to circular measurement by
Tycho Brahe in the end of the sixteenth
century were then unknown, the laws Of
planetary motion discovered by Kepler, his
contemporary, were unthought of, and the
genius of Newton. who was destined to ex-
plain these laws, was also a light OF the
future But more important still to the al
yancement of astronomical research was tne
discovery of the property of lenses aud their
use in the observation Of distant ooJects.
Their adaptation to non-terrestrial purposes
by the genius of Galileo IN loo9 was the
dawn of modern astronomy.
Trnlv the celestial sphere OF the time
If Columbus was far different from the
Ok
armament upfoded TO the intellectual
vision of to-day. The gigantic lenses of
modern times had not increased the starry
host thousandfold. The vast distances OF
the heavenly bodies were beyond the Wild
est fancles Of that age, and measurement to
within a tenth Of second of an arc would
have been deemed impossible.
Thousands of double and multiple stars
now glmmer down from ethereal heights.
revealing their orbits around one another,
and In some few cases their masses and dis
tances. The spectroscope tells OF the con-
sti,uents of these remote orbs. and even
announces the existence Of spheres actually
unseen, but nevertheless divuged to the
enlightened studies of the spectroscoplst.
The camera, too, has probed the depths OF
| space and brought out the faint glimmer OF
| entaDgling nebulous masses and strewn .hs
| dark voids that resisted the discerning
| assiduity of Herschel.
| Little did Colum bus suppose tnat thefe
were worlds circlng overhead whose satei-
| lites, surfaces and seasons were awaiting
| in the unexplored wastes OF space, the KIN
dred genius of Galileo; neither did he dream
that the moon, that guided him over th'
dark waters, would one day reveal Its hill
and valleys to the eyes Of the star-gazer. ant