

SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



Astronomy 

 Atmosphere 



263. ASTRONOMY, UNEXPECTED 

 DEVELOPMENTS IN Spectroscope and Cam- 

 era Supplement Telescope Man Learns the 

 Nature of Orbs Where He May Never Set 

 Foot. The third and last division of celes- 

 tial science may properly be termed " phys- 

 ical and descriptive astronomy." It seeks 

 to know what the heavenly bodies are in 

 themselves, leaving the How? and the 

 Wherefore? of their movements to be other- 

 wise answered. . . . Inquisitions begun 

 with the telescope have been extended and 

 made effective in unhoped-for directions by 

 the aid of the spectroscope and photo- 

 graphic camera. . . . 



The unexpected development of this new 

 physical-celestial science is the leading 

 fact in recent astronomical history. It was 

 out of the regular course of events. In the 

 degree in which it has actually occurred it 

 could certainly not have been foreseen. It 

 was a seizing of the prize by a competitor 

 who had hardly been thought qualified to 

 enter the lists. Orthodox astronomers of 

 the old school looked with a certain con- 

 tempt upon observers who spent their 

 nights in scrutinizing the faces of the moon 

 and -planets rather than in timing their 

 transits; or devoted daylight energies not 

 to reductions and computations, but to 

 counting and measuring spots on the sun. 

 They were regarded as irregular practition- 

 ers, to be tolerated perhaps, but certainly 

 not encouraged. CLERKE History of As- 

 tronomy, int., p. 2. (Bl., 1893.) 



264. ATHEISM, THE HEART RE- 

 VOLTS FROM Our feeling toward athe- 

 ism goes much deeper than the mere recog- 

 nition of it as philosophically untrue. The 

 mood in which we condemn it is not at all 

 like the mood in which we reject the corpus- 

 cular theory of light. . . . We are 

 wont to look upon atheism with unspeak- 

 able horror and loathing. Our moral sense 

 revolts against it no less than our intelli- 

 gence; and this is because, on its practical 

 side, atheism would remove humanity from 

 its peculiar position in the world, and make 

 it cast in its lot with the grass that with- 

 ers and the beasts that perish; and thus 

 the rich and varied life of the universe, in 

 all the ages of its wondrous duration, be- 

 comes deprived of any such element of pur- 

 pose as can make it intelligible to us or ap- 

 peal to our moral sympathies and religious 

 aspirations. FISKE Destiny of Man, ch. 1, 

 p. 13. (H. M. & Co., 1900.) 



265. ATHEIST NOT AN IMPOSSIBLE 

 CHARACTER Has Become Incapable of See- 

 ing God (Ps. xiv, 1). Men tell us some- 

 times there is no such thing as an atheist. 

 There must be. There are some men to 

 whom it is true that there is no God. They 

 cannot see God because they have no eye. 

 They have only an abortive organ, atrophied 

 by neglect. DKUMMOND Natural Law in 

 the Spiritual World, p. 103. (H. Al.) 



266. ATMOSPHERE A FATHOMLESS 

 OCEAN Perhaps Merging in That of Other 

 Worlds. We used to be told that this at- 

 mosphere extended forty-five miles above 

 us, but later observation proves its exist- 

 ence at a height of many times this; and 

 a remarkable speculation, which Dr. Hunt 

 strengthens with the great name of Newton, 

 even contemplates it as extending in ever- 

 increasing tenuity until it touches and 

 merges in the atmosphere of other worlds. 

 LANGLEY New Astronomy, ch. 5, p. 136. 

 (H. M. & Co., 1896.) 



267. ATMOSPHERE AFFECTED BY 

 VOLCANIC ERUPTION Sound-transmis- 

 sion Waves of Gases Sent Round the 

 World Air Filled ivith Rock-dust Red 

 Sunsets for Two Years. The movements 

 which this shock [the eruption of Krakatau 

 in 1883] impressed on the atmosphere were 

 even more remarkable than those which it 

 gave to the sea. The sounds of the explo- 

 sions were heard for double the distance to 

 which we have any record of their having 

 been audible in previous eruptions. If an 

 eruption of Skaptar in Iceland should be 

 audible at once along our great lakes and 

 upon the Mediterranean, we should have a 

 case of sound-transmission comparable to 

 that in Krakatau in August, 1883. The 

 waves of the air caused by the sudden pres- 

 sure of the escaping gases rolled around the 

 earth, twice girdling its circumference. Be- 

 sides the enormous mass of dust which fell 

 upon land and sea within a few hundred 

 miles of the point of explosion, which 

 probably amounted in bulk to as much as 

 twelve cubic miles, an unknown amount of 

 the more finely comminuted rock remained 

 for a long time suspended in the atmos- 

 phere and was floated over all parts of the 

 earth's surface, giving to the sky at morn- 

 ing and evening the memorable ruddy glow 

 it presented in the two years following the 

 eruption. SHALER Aspects of the Earth, p. 

 75. (S., 1900.) 



268. ATMOSPHERE A TRAP FOR 

 SUNBEAMS Nearness of the Sun Not the 



Sole Consideration Saturn and Mercury. 

 The cold of outer space can only be es- 

 timated, in view of recent observations, as 

 at least four hundred degrees Fahrenheit be- 

 low zero (mercury freezes at thirty-nine de- 

 grees below ) , and it is the sun which makes 

 up the difference ... to us, but indi- 

 rectly, and not in the way that we might 

 naturally think, and have till very lately 

 thought; for our atmosphere has a great 

 deal to do with it beside the direct solar 

 rays, allowing more to come in than to go 

 out, until the temperature rises very much 

 higher than it would were there no air 

 here. Thus, since it is this power in the 

 atmosphere of storing the heat which makes 

 us live, no less than the sun's rays them- 

 selves, we see how the temperature of a 

 planet may depend on considerations quite 

 beside its distance from the sun; and when 



