The Savannah morning news., 1903-10-25

ed, raised and lowered, so as to sweep
the whole galaxy of the heavens at
the gazer's command. A curious chair
reaching from floor to ceiling, and ca
pable of various transformat tons to
suit the astronomers purposes, re-
wolves around the telescope on a minia-
ture car track. Below hangs a Won
derful instrument worked by water,
with great brass pendulums swaying to
and fro, like those of an old-fashioned
clock, and swiftly revolving spokes. and
wheels for signalling the motion of
the earth in calculating distances. The
dome itself is movable, revolving on
wheels worked by pulley An open
ing four feet wide extends from base
to top, which when not in use is Sc
curely covered by waterproof sail cloth,
which is rolled and unrolled as by
magic by the pulling of a string.
Upon reflection, / have made mis-
take in the previous paragraph which
would be better corrected at once.
This was once the largest observatory
in the country, but has been outdone
by both the Lick and Yerkes observa-
tories, the telescope of the former
measuring thirty-six, and the Yerkes,
forty inches.
The Washington telescope, however,
is crowned with honors. Among many
celebrated finds" it discovered the
two moons of the red planet of Mars
one close by, and the other galivanting
away off in space at the extreme
length of it's tether, about $4,000 miles
distant. It's first triumph was the de-
termining and settling forever of the
mooted question as to the number of
Uranus moons, which made a great
sensation in the world of science at the
time as proof conclusive of the nebu-
lar hypothesis.
Being of the earth, earthly, it gives
one queer sensations to be brought so
close to the heavenly bodies as to al
most be able to hear the music of the
spheres" The moon presents a most
astonishing appearance when viewed
through the telescope, quite unlike that
with which we are familiar as round
and full, she sails majestically through
the night. Her edges and ragged and
broken, full of deep assures, caves and
inlets, as the edges of our continent
are represented on the map. In the
center lies the broad and placid plain
called by stargazers The Sea of Tran
guilty" and all around 1t stretch
mountain ranges, cleft by craters in
Vulnerable and CHASTITY, as of extinct
volcanoes. 1t is known that the moon
cannot be inhabited-at least by crea-
lures such as we-having no atmos-
pheric air, and being composed OF a
grayish plaster-like substance, emit
ting no light in herself. but illumining
the night for US only as the sun shines
upon her. What a wonderful achieve
ment for science to so nearly obliter-
ate the 100000 miles between us and
Luna that even the mountains upon
her surface have been named. Many
maps of the moon have been made,
and it is known to certainty that
those vast lunar plains, once called
seas, now contain no water. and that
not a drop exists upon the planet-an-
other proof that 1t cannot be inhabited
by any form of animal life with which
we are familiar. Neither is there
any appearance Of vegetation upon
it, or Of the variations which accom-
pany the changing seasons. All that
we can discern is a desolate and rugged
desert, void of life, as our own little
planet may have been before God said
Let there be light" or as 1t may one