POPULAR ASTRONOMY. 



197 



So far as that phase of outdoor in- 

 terest represented by golf is concerned 

 this is a good appeal. Mr. Porter evi- 

 dently believes also in what he calls 

 the "wonderful panorama of miracu- 

 lous transformations." Golf is good 



and Mr. Porter is right that golfing is 

 not all for the golfer. These other 

 interests are well represented by The 

 Guide to Nature, of which every 

 golfer as well as all other lovers of 

 outdoors should be a reader. 



PoPUL^&STRgNomj 



The Heavens for October 



BY PROF. S. ALFRED MITCHELL, OF COLUM- 

 BIA UNIVERSITY. 



The scientific world has been electri- 

 fied to learn of Dr. Frederick A. Cook's 

 claim that he has reached the point 

 farthest north, and before this had 

 ceased being a nine days' wonder or 

 even the ink was dry on the announcing 

 press came news that Commander 

 Robert E. Peary had "nailed the Stars 

 and Stripes to the North Pole" and in 

 consequence all eyes have been riveted 

 on these daring attempts to acquire 

 fame. The inborn love of discovery 

 which attracted these men drew Chris- 

 topher Columbus across the Atlantic, 

 and also spurred on Henry Hudson in 

 his several voyages to find the North- 

 west passage to India. In 1607 Hudson 

 made an attempt to make his way be- 

 tween Greenland and Spitzbergen, 

 reaching as far north as latitude 8o° 

 23', and the following year he tried in 

 vain to pass through between Spitz- 

 bergen and Nova Zembla. In 1609 still 

 in search of the passage to India in his 

 small boat, the "Half Moon," he sailed 

 up the Hudson River as far as Troy, 

 the Three Hundredth Anniversary of 

 which we are now celebrating. Though 

 it is no longer necessary to find a pas- 

 sage to India, intrepid navigators have 

 endured untold hardships in trying to 

 reach the pole of the earth, and the 

 names of Hansen, Greely, the Duke of 

 Abruzzi, Commander Peary and Lieut. 

 Shackleton, stand out indelibly as fine 

 examples of what determined effort 



may do in surmounting difficulties. Be- 

 yond the desire of conquering where 

 others have failed, there seems to be no 

 very great scientific value in these 

 polar expeditions, except that of solv- 

 ing the astronomical problem of reach- 

 ing a point ninety degrees from the 

 equator. 



In Peary's expedition of 1906, he 

 found that there was an easterly drift 

 of the polar ice, indicating the absence 

 of any large bodies of land, and as a 

 result of this information both Peary 

 and Cook veered to the west of north 

 in their quests for the pole. The obser- 

 vations of both explorers show that 

 they each took a remarkably straight 

 course to the pole, and each traveled 

 very quickly. Cook's astronomical 

 positions make clear that after having 

 been two months on his trip subsisting 

 on tallow, etc., he was able to make 

 over the rough ice and snow nearly 

 twenty miles per day for the thirteen 

 days before discovering the pole, on 

 April 21, 1908. 



The method whereby one's position 

 is determined on such an expedition, 

 being a problem of practical astron- 

 omy, will undoubtedly be of interest to 

 readers of the Star Map. One natural- 

 ly supposes that night within the polar 

 regions, lasting as it does for six 

 months, must be one which gets 

 blacker and blacker, with the "darkest 

 hour just before the dawn" — a poetic 

 fancy in which there is not a particle 

 of truth. Two different effects make 

 the polar nights less black. The first 



