El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1912-07-12

ing the Iarge prOD1ems or the universe.
feeling their way with astronomical
apparatus over untrOdden paths Of
sDace One step at a time they are
penetrating into the undiscovered
realms which1ie so many trilliOn miles
away that if we could make the g.
OOO OO0-mile trip to the sun in a single
daV it would take US thousands of
wears, travelling at the same speed to
reach some of the worlds they are now
studying Intimately
lust now the interest of the astro-
uOmicaI world is centered in the big
IOO-inch reflector telescope that is be-
ing constructed at Mt Wilson The
great difficulty IN constructing this
remarkable instrument has been the
making of the hundred inch disk which
: is to be the most powerful and the
largest in the world The French
Plate Glass company made one disk
and shipped it to California, but it was
found TO contain many air bubbles, and
was laid aside. Later another was
made but in the annealing process II
broke, so it was decided that the de-
fective one would be tried out, on con-
dition that it is not to be paid for II
/ it fails to work. 1t was found that the
flaws in it did not reach the surface,
and that inasmuch as II IS to be a re-
/ fleeing telepScOpe these may not In
( terfere with its usefulness
The work of grinding it down is
now going forward, and a delicate Oper-
alton it is. The surface of that mir
ror must be true to the milliOnth part
{ of an inch. The heat of ones finger
I will distort the whole lens until the
temperature is again become normal
Delicate Astronomical Apparatus.
There are all sorts OF astronomical
apparatus at Mt Wilson Director
Hale, with his spectrophoto hehoSrapH
/ can get d better view of the sun at
( its brightest and see more OF It's sur
! face at its most dazzling moments than
would be revealed by i halfway
: around-the-WOrld -eclipse-trip.A All sorts
/ Of the most delicate supplies are need
ed from time to time. Ruled SratInSS
must be had in which the lines have
been drawn 20, 600 to the inch-siXty
J lines to the width Of a human hair.
{ These gralnSS cannot be ruled IN
the presence OF any animal life The
dividing engine is located down in
dOUble-Walled vault, where baromet-
ric pressure and temperature conditions
are kept almost absolutely UNIFORM II
{ consists of diamOnd-pOinted arm or
tracer, and a tool steel bed 1t works
much on the principle Of a mechanical
meat slicer with an automatic feed
As the diamond point traces It's lnNlS-
ible line across the glass a screw of
unbelievable delic2cy moves the glass
up the .0020 part of an inch TO receive
the next line The machine is driven
by a water motor when II i ADJUST
ed and the operator withdraWs he must
wait for some time before the disturb
ing influence OF his presence subsidies
I sufficiently 10 permit the rulln5 Opt-
ration TO begin
] one of the most Interesting lines OF
investigation by the Mt Wilson OBJ
servatOry has been the problem OF
/ the movement of the stars 1t has been
found that when star Is moving To-
ward the earth the light waves tend
toward the blue end of the spectrum,
while in the case OF those moving
away the light waves tend toward the
I red. Just as we are able to tell by
the change of pitch whether a lOCCmO-
tive whistle is coming toward US or
going away SO the astronomer is able
to tell the direction Of the travels OF
the stars by changing uSnL waves
I The Mt Wilson observatory studies are
demonstrating new facts about the
movement of great streams OF stars
through the universe. Some show by
an analysis OF their light waves that
Z they are composed of the same ma
terials as the earth and the sun 9th
crs seem to have Il different compost
tion. All the stars in one great spa
Cial stream are alike, but no two
streams are the same In the little
space available here it is impossible
I 70 tell even a tenth part OF what the
astronomers AZ Mt Wilson are doing
But with the completion OF the new
100-inch reflector tens Of thousands
of new suns are expected to stand re-
vealed TO human knowledge
Magnetic Survey of Earth.
Perhaps no part Of the work OF the
| Carnegie institution is better known
than that undertaken by the depart
ment of terrestrial magnetism. which
includes a magnetic survey of the en-
tire earth. 1t was for this work that
the nOn-maSnetC yacht, the Carnegie,
was fitted out in whose constr ctiOn
not a pound OF iron or steel vas en-
plOyed. Observations of the magnetic
elements OF inclination, dip and lnten-
sity have been made on all the CONT
nents, and over many thousands OF
miles Of the ocean The Information
already brought out mas proved of
much benefit to navigation. and incl
dentauy has thrown new light on many
of the problems of terrestrial physics.
! The Carnegie travelled over $4,000
knots last year, and did much work in
The significant part of this work was
that many and unsupported errors were
/ found to exist In the Indian ocean,
for instance, it was found that many
of the recently issued sailing charts
were as much as from four TO six de-
gree in error in their compass varia-
tiOnS.' an error which in these days of
precise navigation, is a most serious
one. The Carnegie has covered near
" 10000 miles in its travels, and has
laid the foundations for much new
work in the future. Just as soon as
compass variation errors are found the
photographic offices OF the world are
notified, so that shipping may enjoy
the fruits of these discoveries.
Last year the department of merid-
ian astronomy did some important WOrk
in Argentina. As a result a stellar
catalog of the southern hemisphere,
giving the precise positions OF all the
southern stars up to the seventh mag
| nitude has been prepared Perhaps
one of the most interesting discoveries
in connection with the work in Argen-
tina is the fact that the older Il star
gets the faster it travels. This con-
clusiOn was reached by entirely differ
ent methods by others, and 1t now be-
comes an accepted theory of astrOn-
Omy. 1t has been found that the stars
are all on the go, some of them trav-
cling in a great procession toward the
constellation Orion and some in the
opposite direction in a like great pro-
cessiOn- Then there are other streams
of stars which move at right angles TO
those and these latter seem to be the
younger families of suns, and they
travel only about fOur-sevenths as fast
as those going to and from orion.
Prof. Boss holds to the theory that
some are being driven away from
Orion by repulsive force while others
are being drawn toward that cOnSetlla-
ton by the pull of gravity.
Problem of the Future.
One of the main problems of the fu-
ture is that of developing efficiency IN
the human machine How to eat and
what to eat and when to eat, so as
to get the maximum of good out OF
the things we eat when new potatoes