718 



SCIENCE 



[Vol. LVI, No. 1460 



where Mr. Noyes joined the group of astrono- 

 mere, mechanics and laborers fior the first night 

 on which the hundred inch reflector was ready 

 for use and took bis ^place with them for a 

 gflance through it at Jupiter and its moons. 



This bare outline is but the frame-work which 

 Mr. Noyes built to contain the ideas he tries to 

 set forth. He recognizes fully that the great 

 common ground 'l>etween science and poetry is 

 the exercise of the creative 'imagination and in 

 all his description pays less attention to the 

 actual discoveries than to the ideas which led to 

 them. Copernicus and Galileo in their interpre- 

 tations of the motions of the planets and stars, 

 Tyeho in his observations for tlie use of future 

 astronomers, Kepler in fraining simple laws, 

 and Newton in placing the key-stone in the 

 arch, ai'e to Mr. Noyes guides who lighted up 

 the routes rather than discoverers and builders. 

 Let lesser men string the lights which illuminate 

 the territoiies of knowledge; tlie torch-ibearers 

 are those who show the way to them. In fact, 

 Mr. Noyes has succeeded to a considerable ex- 

 tent in absorbing and emitting thoroughly 

 modern views of what constitutes the highest 

 achievement in scientific work. 



One is tempted to mucii quotation to illus- 

 trate how Mr. Noyes has worked out hiis theme 

 and I shall indulge in it to some extent. Some 

 of his attempts strike the reader as achieving 

 a hig'h plane of expression. He has, it is true, 

 almost wholly used the medium of bla.nlv verse, 

 ■^viliich gives him considerable freedom, but the 

 rhythm rarely fails even when he has set hmi- 

 self the difficult task of setting forth some of 

 the more technical laws of nature. While he 

 exercises the poet's right to give such parts 

 of the truth as will illustrate the whole, in do- 

 ing so he avoids with some success the danger 

 of making wrong statements. Kepler's three 

 laiws are given in detail: his wording of the 

 third is rather happy: 



Third, that although tlieir speed from point to 



point 

 Appeared to ohauge, tlieir radii always moved 

 Through equal fields of space in equal times. 



In describing Newton's experiments, he (ells 

 how 



He eauglit 

 The sunbeam striking tlirough thait bullet-hole 



In his closed shutter — a round white spot of light 



Upon a small dark screen. He interposed 



A prism of glass. He saw the sunbeam break 



And spread upon the screen its rainbow band 



Of disentangled colours, all in scale 



Like notes in music; first, the violet ray, 



And then, after desciibing how each ray was 

 tent differently by a second piism. 



Last, he 'took a lens. 

 And, passing through it all those coloured rays. 

 Drew them together again, remerg-ing all 

 On that dark screen, in one white spot of light. 



The last steep is not quite clear but it gives the 

 idea. 



Mr. Noyes exhibits considerable skill in 

 choosing the method by which he shall describe 

 each of his charaetei-s ajnd make them tell of 

 their work and ideas. For the first of tihem, 

 The neighbours gossiped idly at the door. 

 Copernicus lay dying overhead. 



His book has come 

 From Nuremberg at last; but who -would dare 

 To let him see it now' They have altered it! 

 Though Rome approved in full, this preface, look. 

 Declares that his discoveries are a dream! 

 He has asked a thousand times if it has come ; 



While waiting and hoping for it to come he 

 muses on his life and work : 

 So, all my life I pondered on that sclieme 

 Which makes this earth the centre of all worlds, 

 Lighted and Avheeled around by sun and moon 

 And that great crystal sphere wlierein men 



thought 

 Myriads of lesser stars were fixed like lamps, 

 Each in its place, — one mighty glittering wheel 

 Eevolving round this dark abode of man. 



He was puzzled how to account for the mo- 

 lions of the planets and felt that he must tell 

 thie world his ideas before he goes out. Blind- 

 ness comes on and they put the book in his 

 hands : 



It is here! 

 Put out the lamp, now. Draw those curtains back, 

 And let me die with starUght on my face. 



The story of Tj-eho is told in full from 

 The boy at Copenhagen, with his mane 

 Of thick red hair, thrusting his freckled face 

 Out of his upper wiadow, holding the piece 

 Of glass he blackened above his candle-flame 



who later 



