River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1910-05-19

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WDI w4N " from three observatories, that
BNW Hmm the molten Of the planet Nep-
TgHs khEN tune the outermost of all the
MEM NGIM planets that wheeled about the
kSI g.ziM sun, had become erratic. Ogilvy
Ew 1nmNXM had already called attention to
MEENEAME@T suspected retardation in it's We
locity in December. Such piece
of news was 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
ligence 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 it's 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, it's
dust Of planetoids and it's impalpable comets
swims in a vacant immensely that almost de-
feats the imagination. Beyond the orbit OF
Neptune there is space, vacant so far as hui
man observation has penetrated, without
warmth or light or sound, blank emptiness, for
the smallest estimate of the distance to be
traversPd before the nearest of the stars is
attained. And, saving few comets more un-
substantial than the thinnest flame, 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 sun.
D. q Jau uyaco oil vic m
decent instrument, as a speck with barely
sensible diameter, in the constellation Leo
near Regulus In a little while opera
glass could attain 1t.
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 new planet would probably
collide with Neptune. The leader writer's en-
Iarged upon the topic. SO that in most OF the
capitals Of the world on January g. there was
an expectation, however vague, of some immt-
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, sickly, hlterlng
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, 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 afeld, poachers Sinking home, all over the
dusky quickening 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 still 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 or
the wars and pestilences that are foreshad
owed by these fiery signs in the heavens
Sturdy Beers dusky Hottentots, Gold Coast
negroes Frenchmen, 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 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
incontinenty 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 1t sank
westward and the sun 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 sea 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 it rose over Europe every
where were crowds of watchers on billy 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 1t, like the
glare of a white fire. and those who had seen
1t come into existence the night before cried
out at the sight of it. at is larger" they cried
ct is brighter!" And indeed the moon quar-
ter full and sinking in the west was 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.
1T is brighter!" cried the people clustering
in the streets. But in the dim observatories
the watchers held their breath and peered at
one another cit is nearer" they said. Nearer"
And voice after voice repeated, ct is near
er," and the clicking telegraph took that up,
and it trembled along telephone wires, and in
a thousand cities grimy compositors fingered
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