Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1912-05-14
Lore of the Skies
Famous French Astronomer
Draws Prose Poem Picture
of the Heavens.

On the OCCASION OF the recent celepTe-
ton Of his seventeen birthday anniver-
sary. the famous French astronomer. Ca
mile Flammarion. delivered fascinating
address on the wonders Of the heavens.
few Of his pictures, translated by
the Boston Herald. follow:
How have l always looked upon astron-
omy. view it and venerate It as the
not inert planetary masses rolling use
lessly through space which the finger NJ
Urania points out for US in the midst Of
her ETHEREAL plains: they are not mere
shining stellar points whose value Is TO be
summed up by geometrically co-ordina-
ting them-they are worlds. seats Of life
life present. past or future. though for
eternity time is not: they are eenters Of
energy. Of light, Of vast and fertile radia-
tons. Call them earths OF the sky or
suns OF the infinite. They are the hymn
Of universal life sung by all nature.
life being the supreme order, that Law
and end Of creation which every atom
obeys. for TO speak Of inertia is an error
Of intellectual poverty. No. astronomy
must not stop at recording the positions
Of the stars-it must rise to a knowledge
Of their composition.
The lore Of the skies Is not that of the
lcgarithmic tables. On a starry night,
beneath the scintilating of the constella-
tons afar off, in the solitude and silence,
we look up toward these inaccessible
regions and fell ourselves In communion
with the infinite. We know that the
moon. with her mysterious brightness.
is illuminated by the same sun that
iIradiates US. and is so close 10 our own
world that We could reach her over a
bridge OF twenty arches each the diameter
Of the earth. We know that the other
planets. the brilliant Venus. Mars with
his reddish continents, Jupiter enveioped
in cluods. Saturn circled by fantastic
rings, all OF them lit up by our sun and
subject by organic laws similar to those
which rule here. We know that each
star Is a sun. and that the nearest to US
is IS. 62S 0o0. 100 miles distant. Sirius is
over twice, Aldebaran thrice, Affair four
times. Vega five times more remote. Then
beyond these there are stars removed
from us by millions Of billions and bill
| lions Of billions OF miles. We know that
there are more than 1oo.ooOooo Of suns In
the visible universe and that they are
all of them moving at the rate Of from
50 to 800 miles a second-that some Of
them are in their birth throes, sending out
hydrogen flames of dazzling brilliance
while others are In the agonies Of death
and look to us against the blackness Of
night like drops Of blood ready TO coagu,
late; still others at their side flashing
like diamonds, topazes, rubies, emeralds
sapphires, turauoises. amethysts. Their
there are lovely stars revolving around
one another, OF coiors % translucent tina,
TO depict them faithfully you would have
TO steep your brush IN the rainbow and
then scatter its hues upon the pure mid
night sky. And yet this material universe
which We see Is only an archipelago in
the celestial ocean: for though light and
various unknown radiations connect the
stars with one another and with US. be-
You'd our own universe other universes
stretch away unconnected with II into In
finite space. Even II we started away
from our earth with the speed OF light,
travelling toward the night sky at the
rate OF nearly 10000 miles a second. we
might journey for days. weeks. months.
years. centuries, thousands Of centuries,
yet We should never reach point where
Il would be possible for US to say that
we had progressed through space by a
single step or had ever quilted the center
OF the universe