The Paducah sun. [volume] (Paducah, Ky.) 1898-1906, 1905-10-18
THE STARS BY DAYLIGHT.
Tradition That They May he 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 hot
tom of any deep shaft--as of n mine a
well or factory chimney 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 u 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
could have shone down increasingly up
on poor stephen Blackpool during his
seven days and nights OF agony at the
bottom of the Old Hell shaft: that ut
glimpse of it for few minutes in each
twenty-four hours as 1t passed across
the zenith. Dickens, indeed does not
absolutely say that Stephen watched
the star by daylight. 1t is only
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 true? 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 tele-
scope enables the brighter stars TO be
dlscerncd at midday, but the telescope
not only directs the eye and greatly
limits the area from which the sky
light reaches the observer, but it cnor-
mously increases the brightness of the
star relative to that sky illumination
The naked eye observation - true stars
in full sunlight stands in quite a differ
ent category.
Humboldt. who was much interest
ed I'm the question, repeatedly tried the
experiment, both in Siberia ana in
America, 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 tube for the ex-
press purpose of seeing the Pleiades
by daylight, also with no effect. 1t
has been supposed that Flamsteed, the
first astronomer royal. sank we'll nj
Greenwich observatory for the purpose
of observing Gamma Draconis, the
zenith star of Greenwich, in this man.
ner.
The existence Of the well is undoubt-
ed. though Sir George Airy. the late
astronomer royal, was unable 60 find
It, but Flamsteed marks il on more
than one of his plans of the obscrva-
tory, and there Is n drawing eXtnnt
of the well itself, showing the spiral
staircase that ran down IL. But its
purpose seems TO have been not 10
have furnished the means of obserl-
ing the star with the naked eye, but
to enable the observer to measure. as
accurately as possible, the distance Of
the star from the true zenith at the
moment of transit.
Sir John Hcrschel mentions case.
which he considers as satisfactory cyi-
dence. of an optlcian who stated that
the earliest circumstance TINT drew his
attention TO astronomy twas the reg-
ular appearance at Il certain hour for
several successive days of consid-
cradle star through the shaft Of
chimney" This. it will he noticed. is
second hand evidence. have never
been able to obtain evidence even 50
direct as this myself, though have
met several persons who fen quite con
fident that they had seen stars by day
light on looking up the shaft Of
mine. or that some one had told them
he had done so."-K nowledge.