Year: 1875




The Courier j ournal has an editor
with an eye for the beautiful and SUBJ
lime in nature. The four planets
| mentioned above was his theme yes
| terday. We give his article, believing
| 1t will afford pleasure to many of our
readers, and hoping those who may
be unable to appreciate it will dill
gently employ their time until these
grand and awful sights will at least
eclipse the attractions of base BALI:
THE starry heavens Ga sight which
| we have not seen often of late) at
present show us four bright and
strongly shining planets in one night,
nus. Firt appears Jupiter, whose
diameter is II times, and its volume
about l 300 times that of our own
globe. It makes its appearance about
o'clock, when the shadows of night
have fallen upon the earth. 1t is seen
soon after dark almost directly in the
zenith, its position about o'clock
being a little west and south OF the
| zenith. Jupiter sets about midnight.
Proctor believes Jupiter to be still
mass of seething internal volcanic
| FIRE, giving out heat like sun, and
having but very slight crust cooled
as yet, and that subject to continual
fiery outbursts and overhows; while
the vast cloudbelts, thousand miles
deep. are either partly of volcanic
| origin, or are discharging upon the
planet itself such floods of sulphur
charged rain as we can not imagine.
Mars rises red lar in the southern
part Of the eastern horizon soon after
dusk, and by 8 o. clock is a conspicu-
Gus object we'll up in the southern
heavens and easily distinguishable by
its ruddy hue. It is a good time to
scan Mars through a good telescope;
for it will be two years before he is
again in so favorable position as he
has been in for the last month, and
will be in for little time longer.
That bright star Of the rudy hue,
that comes up almost In the southeast,
soon after dark, is the neiehbor
world which Of all the planetary sys-
tenn has presented the most interest
ing field for astronomical study, and
best rewarded Of such studies Il is
pretty definitely decided that his rud-
dy hue is due to some quality or char
acteristic of his soil.


Mars, a smaller planet than the
earth, presents number OF features
which seem to warrant the conclusion
that his more general laws and fea-
lures are somewhat akin to those of
our own world. He has an atmos-
phere; he has his seasons of winter
and summer-the region of snow and
ice2round the southern pole annually,
and visibly decreasing and increasing
in what must be his summer and win
ter. There are on that distant world
oceans and continents; this much at
least is certain. Not such oceans as
the Pacific and Atlantic, but strange,
bottle shaped seas. of no great extent
compared with the earth's greatest.
Whether they arc ever frozen or not,
nobody ON earth yet knows; but it is
Mr.. Proctor's belief that Mars, an
older planet than ours, has gone, far
past his period of greatest life, and is
fast approaching. il he be not already
entering, the cold and lifeless con-
dition of such bodies as our moon,
whose internal heat is exhausted.


Later, rising wan aud far. pale
but luminous ghost of a planet in the
eastern sky, comes up great Saturn
the ringed world. This, on some ac-
counts, is the most interesting study
of all the planets; chiefly because of
the mobility and uncertainty OF its
occasionally shifting shape, and be-
cause Of its giant illuminated rings,
and its eight attendant moons. Its
enormous distance also invests it with
a certain interest which would be
wanting in near object, 1t is ascer-
tanned that its density does not ex
ceed that of water; and the probabili-
ties seem to favor the conclusion that
g. cf.1 loh Of
ter-a world of liquid fire.


In the early dawn of the coming
morning. Venus comes into view. 1t
is the most brilliant of all the planets,
because it is nearer to us and to the
sun Venus Is never more beautiful
or more brilliant than when as a
morning star it shines upon the earth
in the stiffness of a clear morning.