Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-02-17
OUR MAIL POUCH.
Professor Totten and tho Aurora

Professor Totem and tho Aurora.
To the Editor Of The Dispatch:
Evidently the prophetic Professor of
Yale College has hit on the shorthand and
handy method of jumping to his conclusions
first and afterward arranging factors to
play of the night of February 13 as due to
the big sunspot, which i, directly due to the
perihelion Of the planets.
Well, let US do little, just little, reason
ing in mild, easy way, on this proposition,
with q view of seeing how it sustains itself.
The sunspot is fixed fact. It is there, has
been there for some time and Will remain
there for some time to come Presumably,
its potency was not restricted and limited TO
last Saturday evening. Now, IL the display
on the evening mentioned was "due to the
sunSpOt," will this distinguished Professor
be kind enough to rise up and explain why
we have not an auroral phenomenon every
clear night so long as the sunspot maintains
its potency?
Another point. If Prof. Totten were liv-
ing some distance northward of the Arctic
circle, where auroral displays of indescrib-
able grandeur almost constantly illuminate
the heavens during the long Polar nights,
and which, while unseen by intelligent
human beings, have nevertheless been go
ing on for thousands, yea, tens of thousands
OF years, would he then jump, in such an
of-hand manner, TO the conclusion that an
unoffending spot on the sun was the direct
factor in the case? How does he father such
displays, when he has run short of stock
of sunspots?
He quotes DR.. HALEY and the late Ia
mented Prof. Proctor in support of the dec
laratfon that we have no authoritative data
on auroras back OF 1861. Very WELL There
are many other facts Of that and earlier
periods, ofwhich we have no authoritative
data" but this is only testifyfng TO the
superstitious ignorance of the time ana the
lack Of scientific light. There were ~ CEN
turies of sunless, starlight night, but Nature
did not suspend operations decimal
fraction is a terror to Digger Indian, and
his mental machinery is knocked silly IN
the endeavor to grasp an understanding OF
the procession of the equtnoxes, but TINS
does not disprove the convenient utility OF
decimals nor does it initiate an iota against
the motion of the equinOctial points along
the plane of the ecliptic.
Magnetic storms, with and without y1s-
able auroral accompaniment, have occurred
in all the ages and will occur SO long as the
earth has an atmosphere, preserves her
daily rotation on her axis and pursues her
orbftal journey around the sun.
1t seems incredible when great facts stand
forth in unnistakable Significance, when they
are even written in plain view across the
heavens, that any one protesting to be con-
versant with the operations OF nature and
knowledge to others. should so disclose his
lack or understanding of the integrity
and consistency of common physics and
should so wallow in the shadows.
. Not a few, only, of the dismal ideas that have
fallen on ignorant mental soil to trouble and
an impaired digestion, and if some of the
progn Ostications that are just now emana-
ing from the Connections Professor be not
of this order, there is every indication OF
close kinship n.
WAMPUN, Pa, February l5