Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1902-05-08

east we see the beautiful and brilliant star
Vega which, with few small stars about
II, forms the constellation Lyra Accoru-
ing to the old Greeks this is the identlcai
Tyre on which Orpheus played while lead-
ing Eurydice out from the neither world
Those who follow these simple directions
will have learned much of the geography
of the sky and laid the foundation of a
study that is as pleasurablc as it is en-
nobling.
OF the planets Venus retains her pre-
eminence as the Morning Star, rising an
hour and a half ahead of the Sun. Her
great brilliancc far SURPRISING everything
but the sun and moon, is all that is needed
for her identification Jupiter, the second
brightest is also in the morning sky, rising
"A little before midnight. saturn is fail
hour west of Jupiter in that part of The
sky in which the sun is seen in midwinter.
These planets may he easily distinguished
by the fact that there are at present lao
bright stars in their immediate neishbor-
hood Mars rises less than an hour before
the sun. and no satisfactory view may be
had for some time yet to come MercIry
may be seen May 2S and one or two even
ingS before and after. Look as soon as 1t
is dark enough for the stars to come out
in the place which the sun occupied about
an hour before sunset. If you have an
opera glass SO much the better. If you
lind star in the neighborhood where YOU
are searching it is sure to be the planet
of which you are in quest. AS there are
many persons well verscd in astronomical
lore who have never seen Mercury it Is
well worth your while to make the effort.
Uranus is in Ophiuchus. but in company
with such a group of small stars as to dis
courage any but the practised observer.
Neptune, never visible to the naked eye,
is in Taurus and will stay there for a
long time to come.
This completes the list of the great
plancts-pcrhaps. Prof Forbes of Edin-
burgh thinks not and he has given more
than twenty years to the study of the
problem. He thnks-and gives his rea-
sons for thinking-that far out in the vast
ether of space, one hundred times the dis
tance from the earth to the sun, is a giant
planet, which is even greater than the
mighty Jupiter. His reason for this con-
clusion is found in the behavior of Ger
tain comets which seem indubit ably &c
have been directed from their course 10y
some powe rful attraction far beyond the
orbit OF any known planets. If this prove
the case and the mysterious outer planet
is situated at the distance estimated. one
hundred times that of the earth from the
sun. then according to Keplers famous
third law, a thousand years wOuld be the
time required for its slow progress around
the sun. This rate of speed though Glow
compared 70 that of the nearer planets. is
still greater that that of the most aspir-
ing automoblist from whose path we now
fee, being about one hundred miles d
minute.
If the planet really exists it will un-
doubtedly be detected in the course of the
search now proceeding, and triumph OF
the human intellect even greater than
that involved in the discovery of Neptune
will have been accomplished. A railway
train making fifty miles an hour would re-