The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1895-12-15

be got without funds. ] then began 10 look
around for something which 1 could do
which would be commercially profitable 10
the observatory. and the result was the
Inauguration Of the time service, which
has since spread all over the country. and
by which the clocks of our railroads and
our cities are now regulated from an OBJ
servatory at some central point. II is ia
mliar enough now, but 1 had the hard
work OF first introducing 1t and p~ersuading
people OF It's utility. I had TO interest the
city councils and the railroads in 1t. but 1
finally got an electric clock established at
the observatory. and soon had the time of
the city regulated by it. Before this each
jeweler had his own time. Each of the
railroads ran by different times. and there
was no certainty as to the arrivals or de-
partures Of trains. Soon after / started 1t
It was extended along the lines of the rail-
ways until we were regulating clocks as
far as Chicago and Philadelphia from
Pittsburg. To do this we had to have the
electric wires to ourselves. and 1t was so
ARRANGED that we were allowed to use
them for five minutes at 9 o'clock In the
morning and at 4 in the afternoon OF every
day. The system soon spread 10 other
cities. and It Is now in use all over the
world. I did all this to me ungrateful
work In order to get means for my expert
ments: and as 1 look back on it. I think /
may claim hat l did toIerably well in a
business way, for a man chiefly versed in
scientific affairs. for first and last l thus
got for my little observatory over 10000.
This I made out OF nothing, as it were.
and this all went into books and into the
means for scientific research"
THE SUN OFTEN BEHIND TINE.
f"Tha ohaarvsforv cf0cL uoa raCnIafad hu
the sun, was II not?'
YES" replied Mr.. Langley. by the sun
and the fixed stars. You cannot work by
the sun alone. 1t is by no means a regular
body, as many people suppose. You would
not give anything for a watch which
should be as irregular as the sun. The sun
is sometimes fifteen minutes out OF the way
at noon. sometimes ahead and sometimes
behind time, and it is only by averaging
its irregularities that we know where to
find it."
your studies have been largely devoted
to the sun, Mr.. Langley. What is the sun,
anyhow
That question is a good deal easier to
ask than to answer" was the reply. 81
have spent years in watching IL and trying
to learn something about it. I have dis
covered some things, but / should have
TO know a great deal more before I could
adequately answer that question. I spent
three years in the study Of the spots on the
sun before 1 was ready to make any an
nouncements concerning them, and during
the waking hours of those three years the
suns face was almost constantly before
me. Have you ever looked at 1t in a tele-
scope? Do you appreciate what watching
the sun is? In the first place. the face
Of the sun in a telescope Is almost always
quivering. Our atmosphere makes IL seem
10 move to and fro in waves. and looking
at IL Is like looking at a pickering candle,
so that II its surface were ever so near It
would be hard to make out the details.
But then It Is, Of course, really an enor-
nous way OF, 80 that these details are also
lost from its remoteness."
Can you give me an idea how far of It
isr.
1T have tried IN one Of my popular writ
ing to do that by a borrowed Illustration"
replied Mr.. Langley. For instance, you
touch your finger to a candle. and in a
fraction Of a second your brain announces
the pain. The sensation has travelled
along the nerve to the brain almost in
simultaneously. but the speed has been
measured Suppose you had an arm which
would reach from the earth to the sun, and
you could put the tips Of your fingers on
that glowing mass Of fire. 1t would be a
little more than one hundred years Of you
could live 50 long, before you could know
that your fingers were being burned. Well,
the rays OF the sun AVE TO come all that
distance before they reach you, and the
last miles OF their journey are through
waves or heated air, which makes the sun
seem to flicker so. while beyond and behind
all this almost all its brightest surface is
in real actual motion, shifting here and
there with a velocity many hundred times
that Of a cannon bali. These real changes
may last for a second or a minute, and spe-
cial phenomena may occur In the twinkling
of an eye In my studies Of the sun spots I
had to have a paper and pencil before me
as I looked through the telescope to record
these changes as they went on. in order to
catch their varying expressions on the
suns face.
Il cannot describe to you the wonders
which are going on there. I found. how
ever. that In order to do my work well, I
must learn something more than the me-
chanical drawing which was all 1 knew.
and as these studies went on, 1 learned to
draw and paint sufficiently well to make
my records. Since then 1 have drawn hun
dreds Of sun spots. and the works which l
have published have been Illustrated with
my own drawings of them
A LOOK AT A SUN SPOT.
At this point In the conversation, Secre-
tary Langley had one OF these former draw
ings Of a sun spot laid upon the table. 1t
was. in fact. a beautiful painting about
l2x14 inches in size. OF what seemed to
be a snowy surface. with a large black area
in the middle. crossed by strange lines Of
light. blending in fantastic outlines like the
frost figures on a pane of glass.
That said he. sis a spot which / saw In
1873 1t remained about twenty minutes I'm
the field of the telescope. and 1t looks just
as / saw II. You notice all around IT is
white The sun does not look like a ball OF
fre when you see 1t In the telescope. II
appears more frozen than hot. 1t looks
much like the molten white iron In a great
pudding furnace. You cannot see it's
beauty in the drawing. nor can you appre-
ciate its size. That spot which / have there
drawn was sc big that the earth could have
been dropped into ii without touching the
sides. Each OF those bright gossamer-like
threads is about 5000 miles long. and that
spot covered more than a thousand million
square miles OF the suns face. II had an
area OF five times that of the whole surface
OF the earth A little edge OF IL broke up
and dissolved while / looked at il, which
was bigger than the whole United States.
1t was all in motion. and it's seething par
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