Spirit of Jefferson. [volume] (Charles Town, Va. [W. Va.]) 1844-1948, 1915-04-13
STARRY WONDERS
The Changing, Drifting, crum-
bling Consultations.
NOT so PLACID AS THEY SEEM
they Are All In q WhirIing, Restless
Rush, Preparing to Assemble In 9th
err Formations-WiId Flight Earth
ward of the Andronneda Nebula.


err Formations-WiId Flight Earth
ward of the Andronneda Nebula.
THAT spectacle" said a friend of
mine one night, pointing up to the
starry sky, always overwhelms me
with sense of undergraduates.
Yet" l replied. 1t is the grandest
type of continual and stupendous
change that the Imagination could pos
sibly conceive. Its apparent unchange-
ableness is that of distant landscape
Seen BY fash of lightning, the wheel
of a racing auto seems to be motion
less. Your whole lifetime is but a
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
ly crowded stars resemble luminous
clouds. If you could stand watching
those star clouds for a million years
instead of few moments they would
shift and roll before your eyes like the
whirIing vapors of an advancing thun-
derstorm
THE astronomer arrives at 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
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
to 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 exaggeration 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 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
Cross. the Northern Crown, the Tyre,
the Whale. the Scorpion, the Scales
Virgo the Virgin. Hercules the Doer Of
Deeds. Draco the Great Dragon, Ophi-
uchus the Serpent Bearer. the whole
refulgent cycle of the zodiac from
Aries round to Pisces. all 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
asunder and preparing to assemble In
other formations. like the new heaven
that is to shine upon the new earth Of
the Apocalypse.
Look up at Aldebaran, the red first
magnitude star in the eye of Taurus.
1t is going away from you at q speed
of thirty-tve miles per second, seventy
times us fast as the swiftest cannon
ball. Every successive night it is
100000 miles farther than it was
twenty-four hours before, and yet its
distance is so great that it has not APP
preciabIy diminished in brightness in
a thousand years.
Then fix your eyes on a little star
under the feet of Orion, which astrono-
mers call Delta Leporis. 1t is flying
away from us ut the rate of siXty-two
miles per second. That means a re-
treat of more than 5.250,000 miles be-
tween one night and the next, and yet
Delta Leporis does not sensibly fade.
It Is like distant steamers light-so
far away To- begin with that no altera-
ton of its distance can produce
change in its apparent magnitude until
the time elapsed begins to bear some
appreciable proportion to the space that
intervenes.
IF you will regard another little star
in the Whale. called Eta Cephei. you
will be looking at projectile rs big as
a sun. which is shooting toward us
more than fifty miles a second. The
great dog star. Sirius. which crossed
the milky way hundreds Of centuries
before history began, Is speeding In our
direction ut the rate Of fifteen miles d
second. and the little dog star, Procy
on, is chasing after him with the los
ing stride of ten miles per second.
THE magnificent Arcturus is retiring
into the depths of space with dignified
step-three miles Il second-while AL
pha CentaCrus. twin star. each of
whose components equals our sun, is
drawing a million miles nearer every
twenty four hours. The vast Orion
NebuIa is retreating eleven miles a Sec
ond, hut that whirling wonder called
the Andromeda Nebula is rushing hith-
erward 1870 miles a second. or more
than 15.000000 miles per day.
Luckily for us. it has plenty Of sky
room.
''ln view of all this. do the heavens
still seem to you so placid and I'M
changeabley" = Garrett P. Serviss in
Washington Post.
There Is ~ rian that has not his
hour NOS is there anything that has