Milford chronicle., 1914-12-25
STARRY WONDERS
The Changing. Drifting, crum-
bling Consultations.
NOT so PLACID AS THEY SEEN
They Are All In a Whirlins, Restless
Rush, Preparing to Assemble In 9th
or Formations-Wild Flight Earth
ward Of the Andromeda Nebula.

ward Of the Andromeda Nebula.
THAT spectacle" said a friend OF
mine one night pointing up to the
starry sky. always overwhelms me
with a sense Of unchangeableness."
yet" I replied. 1T is the grandest
type Of continual and stupendous
change that the imagination could pos
Eibly conceive. Its apparent unchange-
ableness is that Of distant landscape.
Seen by a flash Of lightning. the wheel
OF a racing auto seems to be motion
less. Your whole lifetime is but
lightning fash against the spinning
wheels Of the universe. The entire
history Of the world since the tradi
tional time Of Adam IS but lightning
flash in the existence Of the sidereal
systems.
They are all in motion. and they are
all changing within themselves. Look
yonder at that rich part of the Milky
way. where the millions Of apparent
" crowded stars resemble luminous
clouds. II you could stand watching
those star clouds Cor a million years
instead Of a few moments they would
shift and roll before your eyes like the
whirling vapors Of an advancing thun-
derstorm.
The astronomer arrives at a knowl- |
edge Of the fluctuations Of the universe
by projecting his Imagination back into
the past and forward into the future.
He gazes through a telescope which
penetrates time instead Of space. Its
lenses gather together and bend to a
focus beams Of ages instead OF rays Of
light. With its aid he sweeps all past
and coming aeons into the field Of his
mental vision and strives to view them
In the mass. as they are seen by the
ancient OF days himself
1T is in this way that we know that
all these brilliant consultations, which
70 the eye Of the casual locker have
not altered their outlines since record
ed history began. are IN reality as
mutable and ephemeral as so many
swarms Of snow crystals
Yes; It Is no exaggeraton to affirm
that the armament Of stars would ap-
pear to an eye endowed with immortal
vision as restless and as swiftly vari-
able as a winter storm sky filed with
eddying flakes.
.Ursa Major. the Great Bear, Leo
the Lion. Taurus the charging Bull. |
Orion the mighty Hunter. the Southern
Gross. the Northern Crown. the Lyre.
the Whale. the Scorpion. the Scales. i
Virgo the Virgin. Hercules the Doer OF
Deeds. Draco the Great Dragon, Ophi-
uchus the Serpent Bearer. the whole
refulgent cycle Of the iodine from
Aries round to Pisces. an these. with
out exception and every starry com
pany IN the whole sky that mankind +,
has admired and made legends about
are breaking up. crumbling, drifting I
asunder and preparing to assemble in
other formations. like the new heaven I
that IS TO shine upon the new earth OF 4
the Apocalypse.
Look up at Aldebaran, the red first 4
star in the eye Of Taurus.
Il Is going away from you at a speed r
If thirty-dre miles per second. seventy r
times as fast as the swiftest cannon /,
ball. Every successive night It is ii
100000 miles farther than 1t was II
wenty-four hours before. and yet fits h
distance is so great that It has not ap. !,
Ireciably diminished IN brightness an 81
thousand years u
Then fix your eyes on a little star
nder the feet OF Orion, which astrono-
iers cali Delta Leporis. II is flying
way from us at the rate OF sixty-two
iiies per second. That means a re-
eat Of more than 52500O0 miles be, y
yeen one night and the next. and yet =
eita Leporis does not sensibly fade q
like distant steamers light-so y
.ay to BEGIN with that no altera- -
sits distance can produce u
corfs apparent magnitude until ~ ].
ed begins to bear some =
HIICkxtion to the space that q
Clarence Ctanother little star e,
visiting his paiEta Cephei. you Of
Cooper u usjectile as big as ~
James q nting toward US "'
1ne s,.. t5e 81 9s4 a second. The
aS;sa Fannie which crossed
10 her home insds OF centuries =. v
II prophecis speeding IN our
bells viii soonf fifteen miles a nln