, 1911-12-30

of a line of rain was measured IN Chris
tiansted on Monday morning. and 2 lines yes
terday morning, at Estate Sally's Fancy line
was measured on Monday morning.
DR.. Longfeld Smiths next lecture will be
delivered in St. Paul's School, Erederlksted,
on Tuesday the 2nd of January, and IN St.
Johns School, Christiansted, on Friday the
5th of January, in both cases beglLnlng at 8
pm
The Subject will be-The relation Of the
constituents of the an to plant and animal
life.
There will be a good moon on both Of the
evenings named.
A few words about some Of the places
mentioned in recent kilograms may be use
full. In maps &c. at hand we have not been
able to find anything about SoU1nt, on the
borders of Egypt and Tripoii, and said to
have been annexed by England to the for
mer country.
AStrobad, to which troops were to be
sent, is a town about 20 miles from the
shore in the 8OMheU8t corner of the Caspian
Sea, is the capital of a small Persian pro-
vince of the same name, and stands IN a
plain at the foot of the northern slope OF the
Elburz Mountains. 1t is said to be very
ullGdlluy ana 10 nave Il pOpultGlOu d
ly estimated at from 5000 to 10000.
Reshd, where 500 Persians are reported
to have been killed, is a much larger town.
f26,O 600 inhabitants) 1t lies near the SOUTH
tneSt corner of the Caspian Sea, and is the
capital of the Persian province of Ghilan,
the more westerly Of the two beautifu1 pro-
vinces lying between the Elburz Mountains
and the Sea.
IuJyi@ pronounced TabreezO is, as men
toned III a recent article in the 40iS, the
second city of Persia, having about 100000
inhabitants. IT lies in the northwest corner
of Persia not far from the Russian frontier
and is q place of considerable overland trade.
Shjra9. From The fact that 200 British
Indian soldiers were stationed there we see
ut once that Shiraz is in southern Persia.
1t is an inland town lying over Il hundred
miles east of Bushire on the Persian Gulf
and is celebrated in Persian poetry for it's
climate, its wine and its rose gardens. Sew
elal kinds of fine articles in wood, metal,
glass and wool are made there. From its
roses, which are cultivated for the purpose,
the valuable altar OF roses is extracted.
En- the columns Of this paper, two or three
years ago, we called attention to tire extra
ordinary beauty Of the stars at this time Of
the wear, the "Christmas stars, as we have
heard them called.
Why should the stars be brighter at one
time of the year than another In one
sense they are not That IS to say, any
given star, leaving out the thousand or 50
of very remarkable stars known to astrono-
mers as "variables, . maintains steadily the
same degree Of brightness, aud each of the
stars visible to the unaided eye is classed by
the astronomers as Of first magnitude, second
magnitude and so on down to the sixth
magnitude, which includes the stars iust
visible to the naked eye on Il clear moonIess
night.
If each star maintains a steady light, how
is it then that we see such striking changes
as the year rolls on 1t is because the
motion of the earth round the sun brings
rs II continuous apparent shifting of our
night sky. Any Of our young readers who
Will think this out viii see that this must
be so. As IL help, look at the following
diagram whore S stands for the sun and c
for the earth.