117 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



Concentration 

 Conflagration 



by the facile pen of Lalande, in rendering 

 intelligible the means by which these elabo- 

 rate arrangements were to issue in an accu- 

 rate knowledge of the sun's distance. Lastly, 

 Herschel's discovery of Uranus, March 13, 

 1781, had the surprising effect of utter nov- 

 elty. Since the human race had become ac- 

 quainted with the company of the planets, 

 no addition had been made to their number. 

 The event thus broke with immemorial tra- 

 ditions, and seemed to show astronomy as 

 still young and full of unlooked-for possi- 

 bilities. CLERKE History of Astronomy, 

 int., p. 5. (Bl., 1893.) 



580. CONDEMNATION OF PRESENT 

 JUDGES BRAVED FOR HIGHER AP- 

 PROVAL (1 Cor. iv, 3-4) The Highest, God 

 The " Great Companion." When for mo- 

 tives of honor and conscience I brave the 

 condemnation of my own family, club, and 

 "set"; when, as a Protestant, I turn 

 Catholic; as a Catholic, freethinker; as a 

 " regular practitioner," homeopath, or what 

 not, I am always inwardly strengthened in 

 my course and steeled against the loss of my 

 actual social self by the thought of other 

 and better possible social judges than those 

 whose verdict goes against me now. The 

 ideal social self which I thus seek in ap- 

 pealing to their decision may be very re- 

 mote: it may be represented as barely pos- 

 sible. I may not hope for its realization 

 during my lifetime; I may even expect the 

 future generations, which would approve me 

 if they knew me, to know nothing about me 

 when I am dead and gone. Yet still the 

 emotion that beckons me on is indubitably 

 the pursuit of an ideal social self, of a self 

 that is at least worthy of approving recog- 

 nition by the highest possible judging com- 

 panion, if such companion there be. This 

 self is the true, the intimate, the ultimate, 

 the permanent Me which I seek. This judge 

 is God, the Absolute Mind, the " Great Com- 

 panion." JAMES Psychology, vol. i, ch. 10, 

 p. 315. (H. H. & Co., 1899.) 



581. CONDITIONS APPARENTLY 

 SIMILAR PRODUCE DIFFERENT RE- 

 SULTS In Coldest Siberia Glaciers Unknown 

 Hasty Inferences Untrustworthy. A 

 study of the arctic regions quickly im- 

 presses one fact upon our minds, viz., the 

 markedly unequal distribution of the larger 

 masses of land-ice. . . . The other is- 

 lands north of the American continent, tho 

 some are of a fair size and rise to a consid- 

 erable elevation, nowhere exhibit an accu- 

 mulation of ice in any way comparable with 

 that of Greenland. The same is true of the 

 northern part of Siberia; the cold there is 

 no less intense than in the north of the 

 other continent. . . . The January tem- 

 perature of Yakutsk, in latitude 62 north, 

 is as low as 40 P., and the soil is per- 



. manently frozen to a depth of about 700 

 feet. Yet in all this region, notwithstand- 

 ing the intense cold, glaciers are unknown. 

 The reason is simple: the air is dry and the 



snowfall is but light. So far as temperature 

 goes, a glacial epoch rules in Siberia, but 

 no marks of ice-action will be left behind in 

 the event of its departure. BONNEY Ice- 

 work, Present and Past, pt. i, ch. 2, p. 39. 

 (A., 1896.) 



582. CONFIDENCE IN COMMON 



SENSE Common sense, however, univer- 

 sally feels that analogy is here a safer guide 

 to truth than the skeptical demand for im- 

 possible evidence.- 1 ROMANES Animal Intel- 

 ligence, int., p. 6. (A., 1899.) 



583. CONFLAGRATION OF A STAR 



News Centuries in Coming. Between 

 thirty and fifteen minutes before midnight 

 of May 12, 1866, Mr. John Birmingham, of 

 Millbrook, near Tuam, in Ireland, saw with 

 astonishment a bright star of the second 

 magnitude unfamiliarly situated in the con- 

 stellation of the Northern Crown. Four 

 hours earlier, Schmidt, of Athens, had been 

 surveying the same part of the heavens, and 

 was able to testify that it was not visibly 

 there; that is to say, a few hours, or pos- 

 sibly a few minutes, sufficed to bring about 

 a conflagration the news of which may have 

 occupied hundreds of years in traveling to 

 us across space. . . . The chief of [the 

 lines observed in the spectrum] agreed in 

 position with lines of hydrogen; so that the 

 immediate cause of the outburst was plainly 

 perceived to have been the eruption, or igni- 

 tion, of vast masses of that subtle kind of 

 matter the universal importance of which 

 throughout the cosmos is one of the most 

 curious facts revealed by the spectroscope. 

 CLERKE History of Astronomy, pt. ii, ch. 12, 

 p. 473. (Bl., 1893.) 



584. 



Sudden Brightness 



of " The Blaze Star " Possible Conflagra- 

 tion of Our Sun The " Day of Fire " on 

 Earth. Years ago a star suddenly ap- 

 peared in the constellation of the North- 

 ern Crown, shining as a star of the second 

 magnitude. It was found that it occupied 

 the same place as a star of the tenth magni- 

 tude, and no doubt now exists that it was 

 this known faint star which had thus sud- 

 denly acquired a new brilliancy ; for tho the 

 star soon lost its great brightness, it can 

 still be seen, as before, as a star of about the 

 tenth magnitude. Now, when the star (ap- 

 propriately called the Blaze Star) came to 

 be examined with the spectroscope, it was 

 found that a great portion of its light came 

 from glowing hydrogen. Doubtless, by some 

 circumstances the exact nature of which we 

 shall never know, there had been a tremen- 

 dous conflagration in that distant star. It 

 was estimated that the brightness of the 

 star increased fully eight hundredfold while 

 this conflagration was in progress. If a 

 change such as this took place in our own 

 sun and who shall say that such a change 

 is impossible? the prophecy of St. Peter 

 would be fulfilled: "The day of the Lord 

 will come as a thief in the night; in the 



