The Green Forest tribune., 1910-05-20

EMh M%a tune, the outermost of all the RII@ FlIk9 planets that wheeled about the ES&. Ws#S9H sum- had become cratic. Ogilvy SsR- -sxsM%M had already called attention to EGATk44AeANY' a suspected retardation in its locity in December. Such a piece of news was scarcely calculated to interest a world the greater portion of whose inhabitants were unaware of the existence of the planet Neptune, nor outside the astronomical profes- 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 Hgence remarkable enough, even before it be- came known that the new body was rapidly grawing larger and brighter that it's motion was quite different from the orderly progress of the planets and that the Reflection of Nep- tune and it's satellite was becoming now of an unprecedented kind.
 Few people without training in science can realize the huge isolation of the solar sys- tenn. The with it's specks of planets it's dust of planetoids and it's impapable comets swims in a vacant immensity that almost de- feats the imagination Beyond the orbit of Neptune there is space, vacant so far as hu- man observation has penetrated without warmth or light or 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
 
 substantial than the thinnest flame no matter had ever to human knowledge crossed this gulf of space, until early in the twentieth cen tury this strange wanderer appeared.
 A vast mass of matter it was bulky heavy rushing without warning out of the black mys- tery of the sky into the radiance of the sum- By the second day it was clearly visible to any decent instrument, as 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 fer 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 new 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 lmmi- 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 as they had always been.
 Until it was dawn in London and Pollux setting and the stars overhead grown pale. The winters dawn it was, a siekly, Altering accumulation of daylight, and the light of gas and candles shone yellow in the windows to show where people were astir. But the yaWn- ing policeman saw the thing, the busy crowds in the market stopped agape, worl1men 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 quickenng country it could be seen and out at sea by seamen watching for the day-a great white star come suddenly into the westward sky!
 Brighter it was than any star in our skies; brighter than the evening star at its brightest. It stilI glowed out white and large, no mere twinkling spot of light, but small round. clear shining disk, an hour after the day had come And where science has not reached, men stared and feared, telling one another of the wars and pestilences that are toreshad- owed by these fiery signs in the heavens, Sturdy Boers, dusky Hottentots. Gold Coast negroes, Frerchmen, Spaniards, Portuguese, stood in the warmth of the sunrise watching the setting of this strange new star
 And in a hundred observatories there had been suppressed excitement, rising almost to shouting pitch, as the two remote bodies had rushed together, and a hurrying to and fro to gather photographic apparatus and spectro- scope and this appliance and that, to record this novel astonishing sight, the destruction of a world For it 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 square]y, by the strange planet from outer space and the heat of the concussiOn 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 as It sank westward and the sun mounted above 1t. EV- ervwhere 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 sea had heard nothing of it's advent and saw it now rise like pigmy moon and climb zenithward and hang head and sink westward with the passing of the night.
 And when next it rose over Europe every where were crowds of watchers on hilly slopes, on house roofs, in open spaces, staring east ward for the rising of the great new star. It rose with a white glow in front of it. like the glare of white fire and those who had seen it come into existence the night before cried out at the sight of it. "It is larger" they cried 'It is brighten" And indeed the moon quar- ter full and sinking in the west was in it's apparent size beyond comparison, but scarcely in all it's breadth had it much brightness now as the little circle of the strange new star
 Tt is brighten" cried the people clustering in the streets But in the dim observatories the watchers held their breath and peered at one another. Tt is nearer" they said. Nearer"
 And voice after voice repeated, 'It is near er," and the clicking telegraph took that up, and it trembled along telephone wires, and in a thousand cities grimy compositors fingered the type 'It is nearer" Men writing in offices, struck with strange realization, flung >>>%~~e~~~>>>>~A~>