The Ketchikan miner., 1915-02-17
STARRY WONDERS
The Changing. Drifting, crum-
 bling Consultations.
NOT so PLACID AS THEY SEEM
They Arc All In . Whirline. Restless Rush, Preparing to Assemble In 9th CT Formations-WiId Flight Earth. ward of the Andromeda Nebula.

CT Formations-WiId Flight Earth 1 ward of the Andromeda Nebuia. | Tint spectacle" said n friend Of
 mine one night. pointing up to the
 starry sky. always overwheims me with a sense of unchangeableness' | Yet" 1 replied. it is the grandest | type Of continual and stulpndouS
 change that the imagination could pos
 sibIy conceive It's apparent unchange
 ublenesS is that of Il distant landscape l Seen by a tiush-of lightning. the wheel 1 .ess. Your whole lifetime is but d | lightning fash against the spinning l wheels of the universe. The entire
 history of the world since the tradi
 tional time of Adam is but Il lightning Hash in the existence of the sidereai
 systems.
 | "They are all in motion. and they are | III changing within themselves Look
 wonder at that rich part of the Milky way, where the millions of apparent
 iy crowded stars resemble luminous
 .louds If you could stand watching
 those star clouds for million years
 instead of few moments they would
 shift and roll before your eyes like the | vhrling vapors of an advancing thun l ierstorm
 | 1f -dge of the fluctuations of the universe | " projecting his imagination back into
 the past and forward into the future | He gnZes through telescope which
 Dcnetrates time instead of space It's 1 ienses gather together and bend to d focus beams of ages instead of rays of 1 fight. With its aid he sweeps all past
 md coming aeons into the field of his l mental vision and strives to view them | m the mass, ns they are seen by the | ancient of days himself
 1t is fin this way that we know thai l 1T these brilliant constelatiuns. which to the eye of the casual IookeI nave | not altered their outlines since record l ed history began, are in reality as | mutable and epheneral as SD many
 swarms of snow crystals.
 Yes: it Is no exaggeration to affirm mat the Armament of stars would ap
 pear to an eye endowed with immortal | sision as restless and as swiftly vhri l ttle as winter storm sky filled with .ddying flakes
 'Ursa Major. the Great Bear. Leo | he Lion. Taurus the charging Bull l )rion the mighty Hunter, the Southern | Grass. the Northern Crown. the Tyre
 the Whale. the Scorpion. the Scales Virgo the Virgin. Hercules the Doer or | Deeds, Draco the Great Dragon. Ophi Ichns the Serpent Bearer. the whole efulgent cycle of the zodiac from lries round to Pisces. all these. with ut exception. and every starry com 1 any in the whole sky that mankind | las admired and made legends about 1 ire treaking up. crumbing. drifting ,Sunder and preparing to assemble i'll | ,ther formations. like the new heaven hat i, to shine upon the new earth of he Apocalypse
 Look up at Aldebaran. the red first | magnitude star in the eye of Taurus | is going away from you at Il speed | if chi 'ty five miles per second. seventy | ines as fast as the swiitpst cannon | Dall Every successive night it is | ,.000.G0O miles farther than 1t was wenty four hours before, and yet it's | distance is so great that 1t has not 8p ,reciaby diminished in brightness in | , thousand years.
 'Than fix your eyes on little star nder the feet of Orion, which astrono | ners call Delta Leporis It is flying | way from us at the rate of siXty-twO niles Ter second That means re reat of more than 5.210O00 miles be ween one night and the next. and yet | )eIta I.epOris does not sensibly fade | is like a distant steamers light-so l ar away to begin with that no altera | ion of its distance can produce l hange in its apparent magnitude unti, | he time elapsed begins to bear some 1 ppreciab proportion to the space that | ntervones
 'If you will regard another little star 1 the Whale. called Eta Cephei. you
 will be looking at projectie as big ns
 sun, which is shooting toward us
 nore than fifty miles second. The 1 reat dog star Sirius. which crossed
 he milky way hundreds of centuries efore history began. is speeding in our
 irectlon at the rate of fifteen miles q
 tcond. and the little dog star. Procy l II. is hasine after him with the los | ig stride of ten miles per second
 "'rhc magnificent Arcturus is retiring
 ito the depths ot spare with dignia"d
 tep-- three miles Il second while Al
 na Centaurns. twin star. tuch oi | hose components equals our sun. Is
 rawinQ q million miles nearer every
 venty four hours The vast Orion
 ehnla ia retreatine eleven miles see nd. but that whirling wonder called he Andromeda Nebula is rushing hith
 rward iS0 miles u second oI more | nan 15.O0O.OOO miles per day!
 Luckily for us 1t has plenty of sky pOm!