The Donaldsonville chief. [volume] (Donaldsonville, La.) 1871-current, 1910-06-11

| IOctly III december. SuCR 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 profess
SIGN did the subsequent discovery of faint
remote speck Of light in the region of the per-
tuTbed planets cause any great excitement.
Scientific people, however found the intel
Hgence remarkable enough, even before 1t 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 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$ immensely that almost de-
feats the imagination. Beyond the orbit of
Neptune there fsAspace, vacant so far as hui
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
attained. And, saving a few comets more I'M
substantial than the thfnnest fame, no matter
had ever to human knowledge crossed this
gulf OF space, until early in the twentieth cen
fury this strange wanderer appeared
A vast mass of matter it was, bulky, heavy.
rushing without warning out of the black mys-
terry 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 hernispheres 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 new planet would probably
collide with Neptune. The leader writer's en-
larged upon the topic. So that in most Of the
capitals of the world on January 3, 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 as they had always
been.
Until it was dawn in London and PoIlux
setting and the stars overhead grown pale.
The winters dawn it was a sickly, fltering
of daylight and the light Of gas
and candles sh5ne s4l1eW In the windows to
show where people were astir. But the yaWn-
ing policeman saw the thing, the busy crowds
n the market stopped agape, workmen going
20 their work betimes, milkmen, the drivers
If news carts, dissipation going home faded
and pale, homeless wanderers, sentineIs on
heir BEATS and in the country, laborers trudg-
ng aield, poachers sinking home all over the
husky, quickening country it could be seen
md out at sea by seamen watching for the
lay-a great white star, come suddenly into
he westward skyi
Brighter it was than any star in our skies;
Brighter than the evening star at its brightest.
still glowed out white and large, no mere
wnkling spot of light, but a small, round.
lear, shining disk, an hour after the day had
ONE And where science has not reached,
len stared and feared, telling one another of
he wars and pestilences that are foreshad
wed by these fiery signs in the heavens
turdy Beers, dusky Hottentots, Gold Coast
egroes, Frerchmen, Spaniards, Portuguese,
TODD in the warmth of the sunrise watching
le setting of this strange new star.
And in a hundred observatories there had
cen suppressed excitement, rising almost to
routing pitch, as the two remote bodies had
lshed together, and hurrying to and fro
gather Photographic apparatus and spectre
ope, and this appliance and that, to record
is novel, astonishing sight, the destruction
a world For it was world, sister planet
our earth, far greater than our earth indeed,
at had so suddenly flashed into flaming
ath. Neptune It was, had been struck, fairly
ID squareIy by the strange planet from
ter space and the heat of the conclusion had
continently turned two solid globes into one
st mass of incandescence. Round the world
at day. two hours before the dawn, went the
Hid great white star, fading only as it sank
stward and the sun mounted above it. Ev-
where men marveled at it, but of all those
10 saw it none could have marveled more
IN those sailors, habitual watchers OF the
rs, who far away at sea had heard nothing
its advent and saw it now rise like pigmy
ION and climb zenithward and hang over
ad and sink westward with the passing of
night
And when next it rose over Europe every !
ere were crowds of watchers on hilly slopes $
house roofs, in open spaces, staring east .
I'd for the rising of the great new star 1t
e with white glow in front of it, like the
re of a white fire. and those who had seen 7
come into existence the night before cried r
at the sight of it. at is larger" they cried
is brighter!" And indeed the moon quar- I
full and sinking in the west was in it's r
aren't size beyond comparison, but scarcely
all its breadth had it as much brightness
as the little circle of the strange new star :
1T is brighter!" cried the people clustering c
the streets. But in the dim observatories a
watchers held their breath and peered at e
another 1T Is nearer they said. Nearer" "