THE STARS 



On bright, sunny days, as we look up and up into 

 the deep blue sky, it seems as if we could see much 

 farther than we can at night, when the darkness 

 shuts in around us; yet in the depths of that blue 

 sky there is no sign of a star. We know that stars 

 are there, because when we look through a telescope 

 or a long, narrow tube we can see them. Yet we 

 do not see the stars by day, because the rays of the 

 sun are so bright that they flood the sky with light. 

 Only by cutting off the sun's rays by means of the 

 long, narrow tube can the feebler light of the stars 

 and planets reach our eyes. But just as soon as the 

 sun has set and its light is beginning to fade away, 

 from out the darkening sky the stars appear one 

 by one. 



Sometimes they seem very far away; sometimes, 

 when the air is clear, as on the top of a high mountain, 

 the stars seem very near, — just above the tree- 

 tops. But they are, in truth, so many billion miles 

 away that the mind cannot grasp the distance. It 

 is of no use to try to tell you how long it would take 

 an express train to reach one of those distant stars, 

 for the number of years would be so- great that it 

 would not mean anything to you. 



Many of the stars seem grouped in our sky as if 

 they belonged together. But those stars are not 



324 



