The Weiser semi-weekly signal. (Weiser, Washington Co., Idaho) 1904-1911, 1905-01-28
THE STARS BY DAYLIGHT.
Tradition That They May Be Seen
From bottom of Shaft.


From bottom of Shaft.
Are the stars visible to ordinary
sight in the daytime? There is wide
spread tradition that they are; that If
an observer places himself at the bot
tom Of any deep shaft-as Of mine, a
well or factory chimney-which may
shut off scattered light and reduce the
area of sky illumination acting on the
retina, he will be able to discern the
brighter stars without difficulty. The
tradition is one of a respectable an
tiquity, for Aristotle refers to persons
seeing stars In daylight when looking
out from caverns of subterranean
reservoirs, and Pliny ascribes to deep
wells similar power of rendering
visible the stars, the light of which
would otherwise be lost in the over
towering splendor of the solar rays.
The tradition, well founded or not
has often been adopted for literary
effect. 1t seems almost sacrilegious to
hint that no star known to astronomers
III
on poor Stephen Blackpool during his
seven days and nights of agony at the
bottom of the Old He'll shaft; that at
the best he could only have caught a
glimpse of it for a few minutes in each
twenty-four hours as it passed across
the zenith. Dickens, indeed, does not
absolutely say that Stephen watched
the star by daylight 1t is only a
natural inference from his description.
but Kipling adopts the tradition in its
EXTREMIST form when he writes Of
The gorge that shows the stars at noon.
day clear.
But is the tradition true7 OF course
every one knows that Venus from time
to time may be seen even at high noon.
but then Venus at her brightest is
many times over brighter than Sirius. |
Then, again, the assistance Of a tele.
scope enables the brighter stars to be |
discerned at midday, but the telescope
not only directs the eye and greatly |
limits the area from which the sky. |
light reaches tho observer, but 1t enor
mously increases the brightness of the
star relative to that sky illumination.
The naked eye observation of true stars
In full sunlight stands in quite differ.
emit category.
Humboldt, who was much interest.
ed In the question, repeatedly tried the
experiment. both In Siberia and in
and not only failed himself
ever to detect star, but never came
across any one who had succeeded
Much more recently an American as.
tronomer set up a tube for the OK.
press purpose Of seeing the P1eiades
oy daylight, also with no effect II
las been supposed that Flamsteed. the
1rst astronomer royal, sank a wen at
ireenw1ch observatory for the purpose
of observing Gamma Draconis. the
zenith star of Greenwich, in this man.
leP.
The existence Of the well is undoubf-
n, though Sir George Airy, the late
astronomer royal, was unable to find
I, but Flamsteed marks it on more
nan one Of his plans of the observa-
~ I'M lhSiS - drawing oXtant
II the well itself, showing the spiral
that ran down It. But its
purpose seems 10 have been not to
AVE furnished the means of observ-
ng the star with the naked eye. but
0 enable the observer to measure, as
ccurateiy as possible, the distance of
he star from the true zenith at the
moment Of transit.
Sir John Herschel mentions a case
Which he considers as satisfactory evil
ence, of an optician who stated that
be earliest circumstance that drew his
ttendon to astronomy ''was the reg
lar appearance at certain hour for
everal successive days Of a consid-
rable star through the shaft of a
himney." This, it win be noticed. is
econd hand evidence. 1 have never
cen able to obtain evidence even so
rect as this myself, though 1 have
let several persons who felt quite con-
dent that they had seen stars by dav-
ght on looking up the shaft of
'lne, or that some one had told them
mad done so."-Knowledge.