The Saint Paul globe., 1904-10-23

TO learn If Mercury is in his first quar-
ter, or Ii. Venus is really crescent,
when the rest of the class, blinking
unassisted eyes, declare that she is
round-this is one Of the services that
the Central high school telescope per-
forms with best results.
Luna's Prodigious craters
Very satisfactory as well are the
glimpses of the moon-the common To-
cal moen-that Prof. Denny and his
astronomer obtain through the six
inch Clark" Mountains on the moon
can be distinguished exactly as M.
Verne saw them when he visited the
Sateil1te; great gorges in the lunar
surface are sufficiently suggestive to
make one step back and mutter my
prodfgious craters stand out clearly
while the professor is refusing to tell
why no craters have ever grown to like
proportions on this much larger sphere.
On Saturn nights-each planet is
honored with special night during
the Wlnter-on Saturn nights every
body looks at rare imported moons,
moons they never saw before moons
that nobody ever sees here in ST. Paul
unless they're friends of Prof. Denny.
One, two, three four+"four moons.D
the professor announces. .sare all you
can see with this instrument Where.
upon he is customarily answered by
goodness gracious" "deary me-" and
other violent outcries. Nearly all of
the young ladies, the astronomy class
being 80 per cent feminine, are salts
fed with four moons The most ro-
mantle are seldom disappointed when
they learn that they are missing at
least four of the poets lamps Bright
ened by eight moons with a SURPRISING
spectacular radiance, Saturn, the stu
dents agree, has no excuse for his
habitual melancholy.
Yet selfish "grubbers'' that yearn to
see more than their instructors have
been known to go as far as Minneapo-
lis in search of missing moons. At
the state university these unsatisfied
souls have searched for astronomical
cheese through telescope ten inches
in diameter. A few students, journey
Ing afar to Northffeld, have reveled in
the largest Northwestern telescope and
all the moons there are.
Boys Prefer Rings of Saturn
Even the boys at the Central, how
ever, prefer rings to moons. The rings
OF Saturn achieve the same success of
curiosity" in st. Paul that the canals
of Mars obtain in cities with a bigger
lense. The Central high" looks at
Mars, but it don't think much of him.
Whether he has canals the Central
doubts; it doesn't see any. In Saturn
1t has more confidence. If you would
ask about Saturn at a Central "moon
party" your informant, with that sat
isfaction that follows a personal re-
search, would enlarge upon rings. He
might say, in effect:
Saturn, because of the two ma gnificent
rings with which it is encircled, is, when
seen through a good telescope. the most
beautiful and wonderful object in the
heavens. The rings are fiat, and so thin
they are not visible when their edge is
turned toward the earth. Their nature
used greatly to puzzle astronomers. 1t
but millions of small particles of dust
and vapor, each revolving in its own orbit
When turned directly toward us the rings
are as luminous as the planet itself. Sat
urn makes a revolution around the sun
every twenty-nine years. Its rings dis
appear every half revolution, or once in
about fifteen years, but they soon begin
Saturn is almost 500, 100000 miles from
the sun, It has eight satellites. When the
edge of its outer ring is toward the earth
beads on a silver wire. Saturns mean
diameter is 10000 miles, or almost nine
times that of the earth.
Eclipses Are PunctuaI
For the contemplation of eclipses the
high school telescope is extremely help
full to the students. Prof Denny would
like to view an eclipsed sun more inti-
mately. But his ambition, according
to his class, savors of daylight and is
unastronomical. The class takes far
more pleasure in an eclipse of the
moon. On such occasions, fortunately,
the school telescope is quite sufficient.
Thus invitations TO meet an eclipse
next Monday night, from 9 p. m. till II,
are accepted with special eagerness be-
cause the entertainment is never post
poned.
- Ii, 1,o C1,,
trail high telescope would look as solid
as the South. But in the way of nerves
and emotional excitability the fullest
'sfreshie'' up at Central is a man of
destiny when compared with the tele-
scope-an Alton Parker, a Gen. Stoes-
sci. The merest trifie worries a tele-
scope and sets it all a-t4emble. If the
instrument dwells on a ground floor
and is anchored like the Democratic
party, these fiutterings are compara
lively slight. But 2aloft upon an or
binary building the Central telescope
is seized with ague tremorS whenever
a heavy vehicle passes along Tenth or
Minnesota street.
Telescope Was Ratified
Accurate observation with that in
strument, accurate, that is, from a
mathematical viewpoint, is not to be
expected. Since one-eighth of an inch
here below may be translated, up
among the planets, by several million
miles, even Prof. Denny might fail to
get "the answer in the book" Indeed,
a sense of scientific responsibility has
oppressed the astronomical class ever
since the fire engine went by. That
was several years ago. 1t was not a
remarkable engine in other respects.
But when the problem upon which the
telescope was then employed had been
worked out the next morning, the
moon, as the class learned with alarm,
was found to have left her orbit to be
rushing headlong into the sun. Then
the young woman who wrote @. E. d.
at the end of this discovery declined
to raise her hand thereafter against
the peace and dignity of the universe.
That's one reaSon-there are others
why mathematical astronomy is
studied little at the Central high. The
one term devoted annually by the
seniors to the celestial science. from
February to June, is confined in prac-
tice to descriptive astronomy The
planets and their little ways are
studied, the fixed stars and the nebu-
lac, one chapter on the sun spots also
A cheering tradition that some senior
always remembers when this chapter
is reached concerns the boy who asked:
Say, Mr.. Denny. aren't We going to
look at the sun spots tomorrow night ?"