Democratic Sentinel, Volume 11, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 December 1887 — WONDERS OF THE HEAVENS. [ARTICLE]

WONDERS OF THE HEAVENS.

Garrett F. Barriu’ Lectors Before the Brooklyn Chautauq tutusWith the aid of the stereopticon the lecturer took his audience upon an excursion into the creations of spaoe and showed them some of the marvels to be found within the ken of the telescope. It was a bird’s-eye view, but no “personally conducted” party of tourists ever saw so many wonders in so short a space of time. The first station upon this solar journey was the sun, and as it was approached Mr. Serviss attempted to give his fel-low-travelers some adequate idea of how big the sun is. The earth’s mass, said the guide, weighs six sextillion tons, How big is a sextillion? Well, if a man were to stand on the torch-balcony of Bartholdi’s etatue and throw $lO gold pieces into the bay at the rate of one every second, it would take him thousands upon thousands of years to get rid of six sextillion dollars. Wall street might afford a quicker method ol getting rid of a fortune, but not much. If the sun were put in the balance it would require 320,000 earths, each weighing Bix sextillion tons, to tip the beam. It may be safely concluded, therefore, that the sun is a pretty big thing. The power of his attraction was next measured, and it was illustrated by Mr. Serviss in this way: The earth moves through space at the rate of nineteen miles per second. A cannon ball will only travel one mile while the earth is traveling eighty miles. It is the power of the sun’s attraction which holds this whirling sphere in its orbit. It has been estimated that were the sun’s attraction to cease suddenly, it would require a Bar of the finest steel 4,000 miles thick to hold it in its orbit. The sun’s attraction, however, is more powerful than a steel rod of that si; e would be. It holds all the planets of our system in their places. It goes further than that and reaches out in the depths of space beyond our system, and acts upon other suns and is acted upon by them. -It collars a vagrant eomet and drags it within its kingdom, and, after compelling it to do homage at its feet, sends the visitor off again into the realms of space; but when the wanderer is 100,000,000,000 miles beyond our system’s boundaries, the bridle of the sun is still upon its neck and his masterful hand restrains its wanderings.

Mr. Serviss next took up the subject of sun spots, and gave a very interesting account of these phenomena. He explained how vast upleaping masses of matter break from the sun’s mass, tearing holes in the sun’s envelope, into which a dozen worlds could drop like billiard balls into a corner pocket Pictures were also given of the appearance of the sun at the time of a total eclipse. Other views showed the red flames of burning hydrogen, leaping up thousands upon thousands of miles above the sun’s surface. The relation of sun spots to electric storms in our atmosphere was also indicated. Comets were the next thing considered. These Marco Polos of the universe, as the lecturer called them, came wandering in from the realms of space like embassadors from other systems, to do homage to the sun. It is not until they come within the range of the sun’s more powerful influence that the flaming tails begin to appear. The comet circles round the sun always with the tail turned away from the orb, and retreats from the sun still with the streamers turned away, like a suppliant backing out of the presence of a king. The extreme tenuity of comets’ mass shows that they are composed of the flimsiest solar materials. It was pointed out how the phenomena of meteors are connected with comets. Mr. Serviss, as became an adventurous sky pilot, took his traveling party still further afield, and showed them that Sirius, the brilliant dog star, is a sun from 800 to 2,000 times larger than our king of day, proving that the great lord of our solar system is a petty chieftain of a small clan when compared with many of the monarchs of the starry realms. Even the great Sirius is a small beer of a fellow by the side of some of his compeers.—Brooklyn Eagle.