, 1911-12-30

utes earlier every night. h
We see then that the present brilliance
of the heavens, is not from my change in.
the stars themselves, but because at this
time of the year we are looking on. a part
of the sky filed with bright stars in beau
tifnl groups and considerations and backed
by that marvellous band of pale light known,
as the Milky Way.
The stars that now make the sky SO. beau
tiful lie along or near to- the Milky WAY.
the grandest of all the constitutions being
the glorious Orion. Four bright stars. in
q figure approaching an oblong aud seeming
to be lying down as the constellation comes
above the horizon, represent the positions
respectively of the shoulders and knees or
the giant hunter, while in the middle three
beautiful stars, apparently rather near to-
gether in a line, mark his belt, or perhaps
we ought rather to call them ornaments on.
the belt, which is shown, even by a field,
glass, to contain along with the three beau
ties, a crowd of smaller stars. Then from
the belt comes down that fine straight line
of stars that represents the dagger. The.
whole figure once noticed is not likely to be-.
forgotten. .
South Of Orion comes the simpler figure
of "Fhe great dog" (Canis Major), the beau
ty of which lies in the brilliant Sirius, or
Dog Star, by far the brightest star to be seen
at any time in the sky.
Far south Of Sirius IS the star Campus
the second in brightness in the entire sky,
being excelled only by Sirius.
Going buck to Orion and lenving him be-
hind as we move III q northwesterly directions
we come to- two beautiful groups III the
constellation '<Hhe Bull" (Taurus( The first
of these is formed like a V turned upside.
down or like an A with the cross line left
out, having at the apex q star Of the second
magnitude and at the end of the southern leg
a star Of the first magnitude (Aldebaraa).
Continuing towards the northwest we
come to q famous star group, the Pleiades,
which nearly everybody knows,some calling it
The seven sisters, some "phe bunch OF
keys. While it shows only six or seven
stars visible to the unaided eye, powerful
telescopes reveal that the group consists in,
reality of rs many thousands.
This leads MS to speak of an aspect of the.
subject not noticed in Che above lines, name
ly the unreasonable difference in this case
between appearances and the facts as for
as known. Here truly things are not what
they SEEM. Let us look at this difference
as it shows itself in several directions; aud
here we would like to be So plain that even.
our youngest readers Gun follow.
1. The distances of the stars. They
must be higher than the. clouds, for we see
the clouds pass in front of them The same.
is bfuS OF the sun ana moon, ana Tor 0uBnC
we can tell by merely looking at them, all
the heavenly bodies may be at the same
distance from US, all moving on the blue
vault of heaven, the ''tirmement" as it
was anciently called. But when we under
stand that there is no vault, that the blue
is simply the colour of the air through
which we are looking, and that in looking
through it we are looking into space without
any limit, boundless space, then we perceive
that the stars may be at all manner of dis
tlnces. The glorious Orion, for example
which looks as if it we're a collection OF celes~
tial diamonds set out on a dark cushion, Macy.
have its stars at varying distances, some far
back Of others. Astronomers tell us that
it Is actually so but first of all they tell usF
that all Tire star3 are immensely distant from
us. They know this from the saGt that the
distance between any two of them remains
the same from whatever standpoint they
ale seen 1t is only within the last 70 years.
or so that astronomers have been abley
by measuring such distances from differ.
emit points in the earth's course round the
sun, to ascertain the distances of some
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