The Portland daily press., 1897-07-06
THE SKIES IN JULY.
Solar Eclipse on the 29th-Position of the
Planets-The Asteroids-The ConsteIla-
ton.

During the month of July the moon
will be in her first quarter on the 18th, full
ON the 18th, in her last quarter on the
21st, new ON the 18th, in perigee on the
18th at noon and in apogee on the 23d at
10 a. m. The sun will be 20 degrees
minutes 10 seconds north of the equator
at the beginning of the month, and pass
during it through an arc of Is degrees IL
minutes of declination, showing an accel-
Grafton of motion compared with last
month.
On the goth of the month one of those
phenomena will take ia CO that from
time immemorial have never failed to en-
gage the attention and elicit the wonder
OF mankind-a solar eclipse. Even those
that are quite familiar with the causes
that produce it, and may even be capa-
BILE of understanding the intrinsic caleu-
lations necessary for it's prediction, can
not suppress feeling of awe on behold
ing this most interesting of all the phe-
nomena of nature. The eclipse will be an
annular one, visible on this continent as
a partial one. In our latitude 1t will be-
gin at half past eight O'Clock in the morn
ing and end twelve minutes past eleven
o'clock.
The planet Mercury will be in Taurus
at the beginning of the month, in Gemini
in the middle and on the boundary line
OF Cancer and Leo at the end. Venus will
be in Taurus during the entire month
and EhInQ a c q mo IN Ill -.
soon after two O'Clock in the morning,
and be the last of the celestial objects
whose light is swallowed up by the super
ior refulgence and the all-absorbing flu
mination of the king of day Mars will
be at the extreme boundary line of Leo,
and not be visible either as morning or
evening star. Jupiter is still in Leo.
though reced1ng more and more from the
bright star Regulus, near which it has
been lingering for several months. 1t
will shine as an evening star until about
half past nine. As.long as it is above the
horizon it is certainly the most striking
object In the evening skies, and being
near the western horizon it much resem-
bles the planet Venus, with which it NAV
be confounded by persons who are not
aware of the fact that Venus is at present
a morning star, and will act in that ca
pacity until the end Of the year. Saturn
is in Scorpio, and sufficiently prominent
to be recognized in its capacity of a
planet, and a bright one, too, though in
ferior to Jupiter. After the setting of the
latter Saturn will outshine all other oh
jects in the heavens.
In the year 1872 a German by the name
ofssBode established certain series of
numbers, the law of whose successive
terms is very simple and easily remem-
bered. Of these successive numbers he
maintained that they express in simple
manner the relative distances of the plan
cts from the sun. When few years later
Uranus was discovered and it's distance
measured it was found that the later quite
well agreed..4with BODIES law. as it i S
called. However, in this series there is
gap between the terms relating to the dis
lance of Mars and Jupiter. This gave rise
to long entertained suspicion that there
must be an undiscovered planet between
the last two planets mentioned This
suspicion served as an incentive to the
discovery ola very small planet on Jan
uary L, 1901, and in quick succession of
similar small planetary bodies, the first
four of which are, in order of their dis
covery, called Ceres, Pallas, Juno and
Vesta.
Since that time great many more of
these so-called asteroids have been dis
covered, so that at present their number
amounts to nearly three hundred. An
American professor at Clinton, N. Y,
who quite recently died, discovered alone
f1fty-two of them. All these asteroids
are exceedingly small, the largest and
brightest, Vesta, having a diameter of
only 319 miles, while that of the smallest
SO far discovered is no more than ten
miles. Although we know but little of
their individual masses, it is certain that
their aggregate mass, even those included
that have not yet been seen, cannot ex-
coed the fourth part of the mass of our
earth. A rifle ball fired off on the sur
face of Vesta, the largest of these diminu-
tive planets, would not return to whence
it came, and good baseball player could
throw his ball on the smaller ones with
sufficient force to ensure it's permanent
separation from the body whence it was
thrown and thus convert it into body
that on it's own account would circulate
around the sun.
The principal consultations that in
course of the month of July win be on
and near the meridian are Scorpio,
Ophiuchus and Hercules Scorpio is one
of the zodiacal consultations and the
most brilliant of all twelve of them. Its
CONFORMATION resembles much a boy 8
kite with long tail. Its principal star
is Alpha OF Antares, first magnitude