A bright and shining deliverer.
There’s a gleam that will shatter concoctions and stop velocities.
There’s a shining thing on the planet Saturn, and the blow that it
shines is lightning. Thus far has gone a revolution of 10.1 miles a
second, but it stops by magic against magic; no farther buzzes a
revolution of 12.4 miles a second—that the rings of Saturn may not move
as, to flatter one little god they “ought” to, because, by the handiwork
of Universality, they may be motionless.
Often has a white spot been seen upon the rings of Saturn: by Schmidt,
Bond, Secchi, Schroeter, Harding, Schwabe, De Vico—a host of other
astronomers.
It is stationary.
In the _English Mechanic_, 49-195, Thomas Gwyn Elger publishes a sketch
of it as he saw it upon the nights of April 18 and 20, 1889. It occupied
a position partly upon one ring and partly upon the other, showing no
distortion. Let Prof. Keeler straddle two concentric merry-go-rounds,
whirling at different velocities: there will be distortion. See vol. 49,
_English Mechanic_, for observation after observation by astronomers
upon this appearance, when seen for several months in the year 1889, the
observers agreeing that, no matter what are the demands of theory, this
fixed spot did indicate that the rings of Saturn do not move.
The White Spot on Saturn has blasted minor magic. He has little, black
retainers who now function in the cause of completeness—the little,
black spots of Saturn—
_Nature_, 53-109:
That, in July and August, 1895, Prof. Mascari, of the Catania
Observatory, had seen dark spots upon the crepe ring of Saturn. The
writer in _Nature_ says that such duration is not easy to explain, if
the rings of Saturn be formations of moving particles, because different
parts of the discolored areas would have different velocities, so that
soon would they distort and diffuse.
Certainly enough, relatively to my purpose, which is to find out for
myself, and to find out with anybody else who may be equally impressed
with a necessity, a brilliant, criminal thing has been slain by a gleam
of higher intensity. Certainly enough, then, with the execution of one
of its foremost exponents, the whole subject of spectroscopy in
astronomy has been cast into rout and disgrace, of course only to
ourselves, and not in the view of manufacturers of spectroscopes, for
instance; but a phantom thing dies a phantom death, and must be slain
over and over again.
I should say that just what is called the spectrum of a star is not
commonly understood. It is one of the greatest uncertainties in science.
The spectrum of a star is a ghost in the first place, but this ghost has
to be further attenuated by a secondary process, and the whole
appearance trembles so with the twinkling of a star that the stories
told by spectra are gasps of palsied phantoms. So it is that, in one of
the greatest indefinitenesses in science, an astronomer reads in a
bewilderment that can be made to correspond with any desideratum. So it
is our acceptance that when any faint, tremulous story told by a
spectrum becomes standardized, the conventional astronomer is told, by
the spectroscope, what he should be told, but that when anything new
appears, for which there is no convention, the bewilderment of the
astronomers is made apparent, and the worthlessness of spectroscopy in
astronomy is shown to all except those who do not want to be shown. Upon
the first of February, 1892, Dr. Thomas D. Anderson, of Edinburgh,
discovered a new star that became known as Nova Aurigae. Here was
something as to which there was no dogmatic “determination.” Each
astronomer had to see, not what he should, but what he could. We shall
see that the astronomers might as well have gone, for information, to
some of Mrs. Piper’s “controls” as to think of depending upon their own
ghosts.
In _Monthly Notices_, Feb., 1893, it is said that probably for seven
weeks, up to the time of calculation, one part of this new star had been
receding at a rate of 230 miles a second, and another part approaching
at a rate of 320 miles a second, giving to these components a distance
apart of 550 miles × 60 × 60 × 24 × 49, whatever that may be.
But there was another séance. This time Dr. Vogel was the medium. The
ghosts told Dr. Vogel that the new star had three parts, one approaching
this earth at the rate of about 420 miles a second, another approaching
at a rate of 22 miles a second, a third part receding at a rate of 300
miles a second. See _Jour. B. A. A._, 2-258.
After that, the “controls” became hysterical. They flickered that there
were six parts of this new star, according to Dr. Lowell’s _Evolution of
Worlds_, p. 9. The faithful will be sorry to read that Lowell revolted.
He says: “There is not room for so many on the stage of the cosmic
drama.” For other reasons for repudiating spectroscopy, or spiritualism,
in astronomy, read what else Lowell says upon this subject.
Nova Aurigae became fainter. Accordingly, Prof. Klinkerfues “found” that
two bodies had passed, and had inflamed, each other, and that the light
of their mutual disturbances would soon disappear (_Jour. B. A. A._,
2-365).
Nova Aurigae became brighter. Accordingly, Dr. Campbell “determined”
that it was approaching this earth at a rate of 128 miles a second
(_Jour. B. A. A._, 2-504).
Then Dr. Espin went into a trance. It was revealed to him that the
object was a nebula (_Eng. Mec._, 56-61). Communication from Dr. and
Mrs. Huggins, to the Royal Society—not a nebula, but a star (_Eng.
Mec._, 57-397). See _Nature_, 47-352, 425—that, according to M. Eugen
Gothard the spectrum of N. A. agreed “perfectly” with the spectrum of a
nebula: that, according to Dr. Huggins, no contrast could be more
striking than the difference between the spectrum of N. A., and the
spectrum of a nebula.
For an account of the revelations at Stonyhurst Observatory, see _Mems.
R. A. S._, 51-129—that there never had been a composition of bodies
moving at the rates that were so definitely announced, because N. A. was
a single star.
Though I have read some of the communications from “Rector” and “Dr.
Phinuit” to Mrs. Piper, I can not think that they ever mouthed sillier
babble than was flickered by the star-ghosts to the astronomers in the
year 1892. We noted Prof. Klinkerfues’ “finding” that two stars had
passed each other, and that the illumination from their mutual
perturbations would soon subside. There was no such disappearance. For
observations upon N. A., ten years later, see _Monthly Notices_, 62-65.
For Prof. Barnard’s observations twenty years later, see _Sci. Amer.
Sup._, 76-154.
The spectroscope is useful in a laboratory. Spoons are useful in a
kitchen. If any other pilgrim should come upon a group of engineers
trying to dig a canal with spoons, his experience and his temptation to
linger would be like ours as to the astronomers and their attempted
application of the spectroscope. I don’t know what of remotest
acceptability may survive in the third supposed proof that this earth
moves around the sun, though we have not found it necessary to go into
the technicalities of the supposed proof. I think we have killed the
phantom thing, but I hope we have not quite succeeded, because we are
moved more by the æsthetics of slaughter than by plain murderousness: we
shall find unity in disposing of the third “proof” by the means by which
the two others were disposed of—