Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1901-11-02
ROBERT BALLS VIEWS.
British Astronomer Interviewed
by Professor Serviss.
THE DISCOVERIES OF AMERICANS.

or KeeIer's Nebular Contributions
to the Stellar Science.
Sir Robert Ball, astronomer royal for
Ireland-he is an Irishman whose
Celtic wit finds inspiration in the scIn-
tfllation of the heavenly bodies-Lown-
dean professor of astronomy in the
University OF Cambridge, England,
and author of many astronomical
books, writes Professor Garrett p. Ser
viss in the New York Journal, came
here to attend Yale's celebration, to
visit some OF our great observatories
and to give lectures. When he says
that America is now at the head of
astronomical advance, the statement
may be accepted as expressing the
opinion that prevails in the land that
nurtured that great autocrat of as
tronomy. Sir William Herschel The
scepter of Herschel. with the opening
of the twentieth century. has passed
to the western shore of the Atlantic.
what in your opinion is the greatest
advance that astronomy has recently
made?" Professor Serviss asked.
y
been doing" replied Sir Robert Ball.
TT is the work accomplished by your
Professor Keller at the great Lick
observatory in California. / don't
know of anything in astronomy so
important as what he did little be-
fore his death. when he took the Cross
ley telescope. which came from Mr..
Commons in England. and with it
discovered the nebular wonders of the
heavens.
''We knew before that there were
nebulae but we did not know how i'm
mense was their number. A few of
the larger ones. visible with telescopes,
had been studied. but they were COM
paratively rare phenomena among the
multitudes of the stars. Then came
Keeler with his Crossley photograph
ing telescope and suddenly pictured
the nebulae for us by thousands. From
the sample tint he got he estimated
that there mi st be at least 10000
nebulse within the reach of that tele-
scope.
'.But the discovery of nebulse in such
enormous numbers is not all. Keller
found, as you know, that about one
half OF them are spiral in shape. Now,
that seems to me a discovery of i'm
mense importance and significance. 1
do not know of anything that can be
compared with it in the recent advance
of astronomy. 1t is particularly inter-
esting because of the light that it
throws upon the origin of the solar sys-
item. 1t has a special Importance for us
because it tells us something of the be-
ginnings and the manner of formation
of such systems.
II remember very WELL" Sir Robert
continued, ''when there was a DISPOSE
ton to discredit the existence of such
things as spiral nebul9. Fifty years
ago the greatest telescope in the world
was Lord Rosse's, at Parsonstorm, in
Ireland. And Lord Rose. with his
great telescope, which was the wonder |
of the world at that time. discovered a |
few nebulae having the form of spirals. |
His description and drawings of them |
made great deal of talk. Very few OBJ |
servers could have the privilege of see
ing them. There was nosother telescope |
in existence powerful enough to show
them, and many persons suspected that
there was some illusions concerned and
refused to believe that such things
could exist. A spiral shaped nebula
was too wonderful a phenomenon to be
readily believed in.
lord Rose was right. of course, and
those things actually did exist. and
gradually more of them were found.
We began to discover them by twos
and by threes. But, all told, the num-
Der OF them was small, and they SEEM
ed to be exceptional phenomena and by
no means characteristic of the struc-
ture of things in the heavens.
"And thus the case remained for
years, until suddenly Professor Keller
comes and astonishes us with his great
discovery that spiral nebulse are scat
tered thick in space; that they are SO
in fact, that one may almost
say that spiral nebtila is one of the
most characteristic objects in the uni
verse. 1t seems to be the common plan
on which nebule are constructed-this
plan of the spiral"
And you regard this discovery as
ending support to the nebule hypoth-
isis of the origin of our solar SYSTEM
81 most certainly do. think it fur
1ishes very strong evidence in favor
Of that theory and goes far to estab-
isn it. With Laplace, as you are
aware. that theory was purely hypo-
hetical. / do not suppose that La
)lace had ever seen a nebula, certainly
lot spiral nebuIa. But think. il he
could have seen what Professor Keel
RS photographs show-thousands and
thousands of such spiralsi 1t is over
"Of course you do not think that the
81 n. /
lebule will result in the formation of
olar systems exactly like ours"
NO." replied Sir Robert Ball. for
n the first place the amount of mat
er involved In them IS Immensely
greater than that constituting our So
ar system. Those hebnIe will form
'astly greater systems OF some kind