TO KNOW THE STARRY HEAVENS 



4i 



21 the least value of 92,000,000 miles 

 will be reached, it is during the last few 

 days of July and the first days of Au- 

 gust that the comet will attain its great- 

 est brightness. At the present time this 

 comet has a small, condensed head and 

 a diffuse tail which in the largest tele- 

 scopes can be traced to a distance one- 

 fifteenth as great as the apparent dia- 

 meter of the moon. 



Saturn may still be seen during the 

 first days of the month, since on July 1 

 it sets an hour and a half after sunset. 

 This time rapidly decreases, however, 

 and the planet is soon lost in the sun's 

 rays. It passes to the west of the sun 

 and enters the morning sky on July 27 





The Planets in July. 



Mercury enters the evening sky on 

 July 12, but will remain too near the 

 sun to be observed during the month. 

 It will attain its greatest eastern elon- 

 gation on August 22. 



Venus sets 1 hour 15 minutes after 

 the sun on July 1 and may then easily 

 be detected shining in the twilight glow 

 near the northwestern point of the hori- 

 zon. In its eastward motion it will 

 pass to the north of Saturn on July 4 

 at 7 P. M. ; the two planets will then be 

 separated by only about one degree, 

 and they may both be seen together in 

 the telescope. On Jul}- 6 at 6 P. M. 

 Venus will similarly pass to the east 

 of Neptune. The latter planet may per- 

 haps be located in the telescope at this 

 time, as it will then lie exactly one de- 

 gree forty minutes south of Venus. As 

 it will be very low in the sky, however, 

 it can only be detected with difficulty at 

 this time. Throughout the month Ve- 

 nus will move eastward and southward 

 through the constellation Cancer and 

 into Leo, along the path indicated in 

 Eigure 1. It will pass the bright star 

 Regulus at A on July 26. The two ob- 

 jects will then form an interesting field 

 in the telescope. 



Mars rises two hours before the sun 

 on July 1 and this time is increased to 

 two and one-half hours by July 31. Ju- 

 piter is in the same part of the sky, but 

 nearly an hour farther west on July i 

 and two hours farther west on July 31. 

 On the former date it rises two hours 

 and forty minutes earlier than the sun, 

 and on the latter no less than four 

 hours and thirty minutes earlier. By 

 the end of the month it is thus high in 

 the morning sky. Both planets are to 

 be looked for far to the north of the 

 east point of the horizon in the early 

 dawn. 



Figure 3. — A recent drawing of the planet Jupiter, 

 showing that the outlines of the "Great Red Spot," 

 which first appeared in 1878, can still be seen. Jupi- 

 ter, which for many weeks has been lost in the sun's 

 rays, is now mounting high into the morning sky. 



at 4 P. M. ; ten hours later it passes the 

 planet Neptune, but both worlds are 

 then far too close to the sun to be ob- 

 served. 



Since passing the summer solstice 

 the sun's motion southward among the 

 stars is steadily continuing, and we see 

 the effects of this in the shortening of 

 the days with the consequent lengthen- 

 ing of the nights. The change is, how- 

 ever, as yet not very strongly marked, 

 the length of the day diminishing from 

 15 hours 4 miuntes to 14 hours 22 min- 

 utes during the present month. It is 

 toward the latter part of August that 

 the acceleration of the nights' increase 

 will begin to become most noticeable. 



On July 3 at 3 P. M. our earth will 

 be at its greatest distance from the sun ; 

 at this time we will be 3,100,000 miles 

 farther away from that body than we 

 were during the early days of last Jan- 

 uarv. 



The Lake. 



The lake a burnished mirror is 

 For sunrise glories bright; 



And when that orb has run its cour 

 Reflects its last good night. 



— Emma Peirce. 



