TO KNOW THE STARRY HEAVENS 
Ev 
A Poetic Soul Breaks Loose. 
A contributor on the Pacific Coast, whose 
interest was aroused by the recent repro- 
duction in our columns of the Albuquerque 
reporter’s noble efforts to tell his readers 
what the speaker had said about the make- 
up of the universe, sends us a gem of slight- 
ly different sort. This, so far as we can 
judge from the clipping, is a voluntary con- 
tribution by one of the subscribers of some 
very small-town weekly. He is so proud of 
his literary ability that he signs his name. 
If his excursion among the wonders of the 
world had operated to still his pen as well 
as his tongue, the world would indeed have 
been the poorer. We reproduce his effusion 
faithfully : 
“It is said the astronomer Homer 
sang and worshiped these same stars, 
and may not come we, every thirsty in- 
quiring mind, let us venture into the 
realm of the velvet blue above what 
wealth what beauty is in store, see your 
beautiful evening star one of the most 
beautiful of the planets how I love to 
gaze upon her she bears me through in- 
fantude my imagination soars aloft. I 
have visited some of natures wonders 
of great views, have looked from top 
of Lookout Mountain on bottom of the 
great Atlantic through Mammoth Cave 
beneath the thundering Cataract of 
Niagara Falls which so filled me with 
wonder and admiration as to make me 
speechless. But all of these are tame 
compared to the relevations brought to 
me of the beauties of heaven at night 
through a telescope.” — The Scientific 
American. 
That Moon Photograph. 
(See “A Good Observation,” page 98, No- 
vember, 1920, issue.) 
Andover, Mass. 
To the Editor: 
The reversal of holes to projections, 
which your Scout noticed in pictures of 
the moon, is likely to occur with any 
unfamiliar object, the picture of which 
is sharply black and write. The reason 
is that we always interpret the picture 
of a hole by the fact that the shadow 
is on the up-light side, and the picture 
of a projection by the shadow on the 
down-light side. If we are familiar 
with the sort of objects represented, we 
know which is which, and we interpret 
correctly. Or if there is in the picture 
a good deal of half-tone, neither dead 
black or dead white, this gives us the 
hint, and the eye interprets the rest to 
agree. 
But where both these aids are lack- 
ing, as sometimes in pictures of the 
moon, the eye simply guesses — and as 
often wrong as right. I have often no- 
ticed this in lantern slides. A series of 
pictures, all taken with the light com- 
ing, let us say, from the right, is fol- 
lowed by one in which the light comes 
from the left. The eye has the right- 
hand-light habit more or less fixed. It 
will, then, almost always with pictures 
of the moon, reverse the first left-hand- 
light picture, and usually the second. 
This is especially the case if there is a 
little light in the room itself, coming 
the wrong way of the pictures. Under 
these conditions, I have had virtually 
an entire class reverse the same illus- 
tration. 
Turning the picture upside down, of 
course, makes the lighti ng correspond 
with the habit and the real surround- 
ings. Or if the interpretation was cor- 
rect at first, turning upside down may 
make it go wrong. Often when the first 
guess is wrong, this sticks so firmly 
that the picture refuses to go right at 
all. I think, however, that only geo- 
metrical designs with conventionalized 
shadows are likely to be thus persist- 
ent; and these have really no right or 
wrong. At any rate, a familiar scene 
never reverses. 
Edwin Tenney Brewster. 
Suns of Night. 
BY CHARLES NEVERS HOLMES, NEWTON, 
MASSACHUSETTS. 
Like diamonds sparkling clear and bright 
Amid an ebon dome, 
At twilight wake the Suns of Night, 
And shine where’er we roam; 
Where’er we roam, where’er we be, 
On foreign strand or foreign sea. 
Some sparkle with resplendent light, 
Some twinkle with dim rays, 
Some shine like beacons clear and white, 
Or burn with ruddy blaze; 
But all seem like bright, sleepless eyes 
Of divers sorts and divers size. 
And all are monarchs of the night, 
Yet each king reigns alone 
O’er silence, space and satellite, 
Upon a flaming throne; 
O’er silence, space and satellite 
Until King Sol puts them to flight. 
The hill is crowned with gold 
By the newly risen sun; 
Thus in poetry we’re told 
The new day has begun. 
— Emma Peirce. 
