34 Star anfr Meatber (gossip 



Gegenschein ? Of those beautiful meteors which so 

 attract us in April and August ? 



But Mars ! Chiefest among celestial mysteries ; the 

 very mystery of mysteries. There is in its solution a 

 human interest, something quite outside the frigid, 

 unsympathetic domain of purely abstract science. 



Who, I wonder, will be the (Edipus to solve this 

 Martian riddle ? Than the divine mathematical skill 

 of Laplace, of Leverrier, of Adams, rather will he need 

 the calm, well-balanced reasoning of a Newton, com- 

 bined with the multi- vision of an Argus. 



Yet we must admit that something is already known 

 of Mars physically. In both our own country and 

 America there is an earnest and assiduous band of 

 students of the planet. But the palm for Martian 

 research undeniably belongs to America, to Prof. 

 Percival Lowell. With us in England the spirit is 

 willing though the means be weak. The observers in 

 the United States have the instruments and they are 

 blessed with the skies. Here we are indifferently 

 provided with both. 



TWINKLING PLANETS 



What a merry sparkler is the planet Mercury ! Is 

 there, indeed, anything quite so merry in the entire 

 sky ? Yet planets are not generally supposed to 

 twinkle at all. And one may say, broadly, that the 

 supposition is true. Who has not always understood 

 that a planet is to be distinguished from a " fixed star " 

 by the steadiness of its beams ? 



As a rule, the steadiness or unsteadiness of a planet's 

 light depends upon the altitude of the body, as may 



