THE HEAVENS FOR MARCH 



333 



The Stars and Planets. 



BY PROFESSOR S. A. MITCHELL, COLUMBIA 



UNIVERSITY, NEW YORK CITY. 

 Written solely and expressly for "The Guide 



to Nature." Information on astronomi- 

 cal subjects freely given. — E. F. B. 



The coming of spring brings with 

 it a lengthening of clays due to the 

 northward motion of the sun in its, 

 path. Through March the length of 

 the daylight hours increases rapidly, the 

 sun rising earlier each day, and setting 

 later. On March 20th, at 6.29 P. M., 

 the sun is on the equator, and the sea- 

 son of spring begins for the astron- 

 omer. This is the time when from 

 earliest childhood we were taught that 

 there are "equal days and nights set 

 over the whole world." Naturally we 

 imagine that the sun rises at six o'clock 

 in the morning and sets at six o'clock 

 in the evening. This surmise is en- 

 tirely incorrect as one would very read- 

 ily notice if he should take the trouble 

 to look at even any ordinary patent 

 medicine almanac. From such a book, 

 it is easy to see that the sun sets at 

 six o'clock for New York City, on 

 March 9th, and rises at six o'clock on 

 March 23rd. Neither of these dates 

 fall on the day of the vernal equinox. 

 As a matter of fact, on March 20th, the 

 sun rises at 6.04 A. M., and sets at 

 6.12 P. M. There are two reasons for 

 this apparent discrepancy. Halfway 

 between the hours of rising and set- 

 ting the sun is on the meridian. Half- 

 way between the two times given is 

 12.08 P. M., or eight minutes after 

 twelve, and "noon" does not occur at 

 twelve o'clock ! As nearly ever one 

 knows, the sun is a poor timekeeper. 



But on March 20th, the sun is up 

 more than twelve hours, and the reason 

 is that refraction causes the sun to rise 

 earlier and set later by lifting the sun 



up above the horizon. It is seen from 

 the above regarding the beginning of 

 spring that there are many facts in nat- 

 ural science that we all should know, 

 but which in reality are known to very 

 few of us. 



The planets continue to be of great 

 interest. Mars and Saturn are visible 

 in the western sky shortly after sun- 

 set, and Venus and Jupiter are seen in 

 the east before sunrise. On March 4th, 

 Mars is 90 to the east of the sun and is 

 on the meridian at six o'clock in the 

 evening, while Jupiter is 90 west of 

 the sun and is on the meridian at six 

 o'clock in the morning. So that Mars 

 and Jupiter are 180 from each other, 

 and one rises when the other sets. In 

 the morning sky, Venus is farther east 

 than Jupiter. 



The winter constellations are drag- 

 ging themselves farther towards the 

 west each night, while the spring and 

 summer stars are coming more into 

 view. The return of the stars to a 

 given position is a surer phenomenon 

 than the welcome return of the robin 

 in the spring. 



Professional Scientists Should Aid. 

 Without a doubt, innumerable bald, 

 unphilosophized facts of living nature 

 that would entertain and instruct, and 

 consequently keenly interest thousands 

 upon thousands of generally intelli- 

 gent persons, are buried in the tech- 

 nical language of biological narration 

 and description beyond the possibility 

 of extraction for such purposes except 

 at the hands of biologists themselves. 

 Now many, perhaps not all, profes- 

 sional biologists are abundantlv en- 

 dowed by nature with the ability to do 

 this extracting and preparing for gen- 

 eral consumption. Acquiring the knack 

 to do it is dependent first and foremost 



