New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1905-05-10

TO those of his own race than to the general
reader Yet his search for literary treasures
| was not prosecuted without adventure. He
| was fortunate in being able TO find in
! Spain "a copy of the very nautical tables
| used by Columbus, which had been COM
piled in Portugal by one Jew, printed there by
another and presented to him by third"
He penetrated to the jealousy guarded mosque
erected over the cave of Machpelah in the dis
guise of a mechanic, wearing tarbouche and
carrying a measure and some bottles Of gliding
for the new gates that were then being put up.
In Smyrna he came across some wonderful
manuscript copies of the Massoretic Pentateuch
and of the Prophets and Photographic, which
had still more wonderful history
One day the River Hermus overlooked it's banks
and the anxious bystanders noticed a huge and
ancient coffin floating down the stream They
tried to catch hold but it eluded their grasp Then
Again in YAM AT last the jews were called, and
the slightest difficulty. The coffin opened and
found to contain skeleton and four volumes in
Turks gave the books to them, but kept the skel-
eton, which they buried with due solemnity in
mosque. in AGagnesia. In the dead ot night the
that had been thus honorcd and declared that he
was no Turkish saint, but a pous Jew. and begged
that his body might be removed from unhallOwed
ground That night the Jews by stealth disin-
their own Gods acre. And to this day that grave
I'm Urum Jami is empty, though the 1shmaelites
ous Ashkenazi who had studied It day after day
ished WV
For new books on such an old subject as
tronomy the only legitimate pretexts fresh
discoveries or novel treatment of familiar facts.
Professor Edward Irving, of Berkeley, CAL,
gives his for How to Know the
Starry Heavens CFrederick A. Stokes Com
pany) a modest wish to induce people to read
other works on stellar science. He will certain
ly realize that hope but it would be hard to find
a more charming presentation of essential facts
and theories than his Though a safe guide in
the discussion of these, he handles them in a
delightfully."- poetic fashion. To quote one of his
own chapter headings, he is forever riding in
"a chariot of the Imagination" AS might be ex-
pected of man of Professor Irving's originality,
he condenses where others diate and Celebrates
where others are brief, the former policy charac-
terizing his consideration of the planets On
the other hand, he ampl1es when giving reasons
for modifying The nebular hypothesis, and he
devotes long chapter TO the possibility that
other orbs than the earth are inhabited His
answer to the question whether nature is as
wasteful of worlds she is Of sunlight" is that
I'VE never shall know A few paragraphs
touch on the new theories regarding the atom
and electroni3 emissions from the sun, but the
the age of that body. the stars any of their
satellites.
H. H. Turner, SaViliaE professor of astronomy
at Oxford and Editor Of THE Observatory"
vas invited to deliver series Of lectures in
Chicago last summer. These talks, carefully re-
viscd, have been collected under the title "As-
Economical Discovery Ocngmans Green & Coz.
The writer explains in the preface that he has
not undertaken to discuss the subject compre-
hensively, but by selecting a few examples to
illustrate the almost unlimited possibilities of
such research. His first two chapters deal with
the planets Uranus and Neptune, and the freaky
asteroid, Eros. Bradleys Investigations Of the
alteration of light and the mutation of the
earth's axis are reviewed in another a group of
accidental discoveries (mostly of the new stars
by photography in the fourth, and Schwa be's
detection of periodicity in the size and abund-
ance OF sunspots in the fifth. The last CHAPTER
relative to the wabbling motion Of the globe
Which gives rise to variations in latitude recog-
nlzes the work of an American, Seth c. Chandler
or Cambridge, Mass. Two of that astronomers
Fellow countrymen also receive attention. The
ingenious method Of photographing the sun nv
the light given by a single chemical element
calcium or hydrogen which Professor George
h. Hale developed is briefly referred to in con-
nection with sunspots and the volume is dedi-
Gated TO Professor E. E. Barnard