The Elbert County tribune., 1910-05-20

locfty in December Such piece
of news scarcely calculated to interest
world the greater portion of whose Inhabitants
were unaware of the existence of the planet
Neptune. nor outside the astronomical profess
sion did the subsequent discovery of faint
remote speck of light in the region of the per-
turbed planets cause any great excitement
Scientific people, however. found the intel<
Ngence remarkable enough. even before it be-
came known that the new body was rapidly
craving larger and brighter. that its motion
was quite different from the orderly progress
OF the planets and that the DETECTION of Nep-
tune and its satellite was becoming now of
an unprecedented kind
Few people without a training in science
can realize the huge isolation of the solar sys-
tenn. The sun with its specks of planets. its
dust of planetoids and its impalpable comets
swims in vacant immensty that almost de-
feats the imagination. Beyond the orbit of
Neptune there is space. vacant far hui
man observation has penetrated without
warmth or light sound blank emptiness. for
twenty million times million miles. That is
the smallest estimate of the distance to be
traversed before the nearest of the stars is
attained. And, saving few comets more
substantial than the thnnest flame matter
had ever to human knowledge crossed this
gulf of space until early in the twentieth
tury this strange wanderer appeared.
vast mass of matter 1t was, bulky heavy,
rushing without warning out of the black mys-
terry of the sky into the radiance of the sun.
By the second day it was clearly visible to any
decent instrument. a speck with barely
sensible diameter in the constellation Leo
near Regulus. In little while an opera
glass could attain it.
On the third day of the new year the news
paper readers of two hemispheres were made
aware for the first time of the real Importance
of this unusual apparition in the heavens. "A
Planetary Collision" one London paper headed
the news, and proclaimed Duchaine's opinion
that this strange planet would probably
collide with Neptune. The leader writers en-
larged upon the topic. So that in most of the
capitals of the world, on January g. there was
an expectation, however vague, of some immi-
nent phenomenon in the sky; and as the night
followed the sunset round the globe thousands
of men turned their eyes skyward to see
the old familiar stars just they had always
been.
Until it was dawn in London and Pollux
setting and the stars overhead grown pale.
The winters dawn it was, sckly, fltering
accumulation of daylight, and the light of gas
and candles shone yellow in the windows to
show where people astir But the yawn-
ing policeman saw the thing, the busy crowds
,in the market stopped agape, workmen going
to their work betimes. milkmen. the drivers
of news carts, dissipation going home jaded
and pale homeless wanderers, sentinels on
their BEATS and In the country, laborers trudg-
ing afield. poachers sinking home all over the
dusky quickening country 1t could be seen
and out at sea by seamen watching for the
day-a great white star. come suddenly into
the westward sky!
Brighter 1t was than any star in our skies;
brighter than the evening star at its brightest.
1t still gIowed out white and large, no mere
twinkling spot of light, but small. round.
clear shining disk hour after the day had
come And where science has not reached,
men stared and feared, telling one another OF
the wars and pestlences that are foreshad-
owed by these fiery signs in the heavens.
Sturdy Beers, dusky Hottentots Gold Coast
negroes Frerchmen Spanards. Portuguese,
stood in the warmth of the sunrise watching
the setting of this strange new star.
And in hundred observatories there had
been suppressed excitement. rising almost 10
shouting pitch, the two remote bodies mad
rushed together, and hurry1ng TO and fro
to gather Photographic apparatus and spectre
scope and this appliance and that. to record
this novel, astonishing sight, the destruction
of world. For it was world, sister planet
of our earth, far greater than our earth indeed,
that had so suddenly flashed into flaming
death Neptune it was. had been struck, fairly
and squareIy. by the strange planet from
outer space and the heat of the conclusion had
incontinently turned two solid globes into one
vast mass of incandescence. Round the world
that day. two hours before the dawn, went the
pallid great white star, fading only it sank
westward and the mounted above it. Ev-
erywhere men marveled at it, but of all those
who saw it none could have marveled more
than those sailors. habitual watchers of the
stars who far away at had heard nothing
of its advent and saw it now rise like pigmy
moon and climb zenithward and hang over
head and sink westward with the passing of
the night.
And when next 1t over Europe every
where were crowds of watchers on hily slopes.
on house roofs. in open spaces, staring east
ward for the rising of the great new star. 1t
rose with a white glow in front of it. like the
glare of white fire. and those who had seen
IT <ome into existence the night before cried
out at the sight of it. "It is larger" they cried
.'It is brighter!" And indeed the moon a quar-
ter full and sinking in the west in its
apparent size beyond comparison. but scarcely
in ali its breadth had it as much brightness
now as the little circle of the strange new star.
st. 4, hr,1b+artD cried the neonIe clusterinp