Our data indicate that the planets are circulating adjacencies. Almost
do we now conceive of a difficulty of the future as being not how to
reach the planets, but how to dodge them. Especially do we warn aviators
away from that rhinoceros of the skies, Mercury. I have a note somewhere
upon one of the wickedest-looking horns in existence, sticking out far
from Mercury. I think it was Mr. Whitmell who made this observation. I’d
like to hear Andrew Barclay’s opinion upon that. I’d like to hear Capt.
Noble’s.
If sometimes does the planet Mars almost graze this earth, as is not
told by the great telescopes, which are only millionaires’ memorials,
or, at least, which reveal but little more than did the little spy
glasses used by Burnham and Williams and Beer and Mädler—but if
periodically the planet Mars comes very close to this earth, and, if
Mars, an island with perhaps no more surface-area than has England, but
likely enough inhabited, like England—
June 19, 1875—opposition of Mars.
Flashes that were seen in the sky upon the 25th of June, 1875, by
Charles Gape, of Scole, Norfolk (_Eng. Mec._, 21-488). The Editor of
_Symons’ Met. Mag._ (see vol. 10-116) was interested, and sent Mr. Gape
some questions, receiving answers that nothing had appeared in the local
newspapers upon the subject, and that nothing could be learned of a
display of fireworks, at the time. To Mr. Gape the appearances seemed to
be meteoric.
The year 1877—climacteric opposition of Mars.
There were some discoveries.
We have at times wondered how astronomers spend their nights. Of course,
according to many of his writings upon the subject, Richard Proctor had
an excellent knowledge of whist. But in the year 1877, two astronomers
looked up at the sky, and one of them discovered the moons of Mars, and
the other called attention to lines on Mars—and, if for centuries, the
moons of Mars could so remain unknown to all inhabitants of this earth
except, as it were, Dean Swift—why it is no wonder that we so
respectfully heed some of the Dean’s other intuitions, and think that
there may be Lilliputians, or Brobdingnagians, and other forms not
conventionally supposed to be. As to our own fields of data, I have a
striking number of notes upon signal-like appearances upon the moon, in
the year 1877, but have notes upon only one occurrence that, in our
interests, may relate to Mars. The occurrence is like that of July 31,
1813 and June 19, 1875.
Sept. 5, 1877—opposition of Mars.
Sept. 7, 1877—lights appeared in the sky of Bloomington, Indiana. They
were supposed to be meteoric. They appeared and disappeared, at
intervals of three or four seconds; darkness for several minutes; then a
final flash of light. See _Sci. Amer._, 37-193.
* * * * *
That all luminous objects that are seen in the sky when the planet Venus
is nearest may not be Venus; may not be fire-balloons:
In the _Dundee Advertiser_, Dec. 22, 1882, it is said that, between 10
and 11 A. M., Dec. 21, at Broughty Ferry, Scotland, a correspondent had
seen an unknown luminous body near and a little above the sun. In the
_Advertiser_, Dec. 25, is published a letter from someone who says that
this object had been seen at Dundee, also; that quite certainly it was
the planet Venus and “no other.” In _Knowledge_, 2-489, this story is
told by a writer who says that undoubtedly the object was Venus. But, in
_Knowledge_, 3-13, the astronomer J. E. Gore writes that the object
could not have been Venus, which upon this date was 1 h. 33 m., R. A.,
west of the sun. The observation is reviewed in _L’Astronomie_,
1883-109. Here it is said that the position of Mercury accorded better.
Reasonably this object could not have been Mercury: several objections
are comprehended in the statement that superior conjunction of Mercury
had occurred upon Dec. 16.
Upon Feb. 3, 1884, M. Staevert, of the Brussels Observatory, saw, upon
the disc of Venus, an extremely brilliant point (_Ciel et Terre_,
5-127). Nine days later, Niesten saw just such a point of light as this,
but at a distance from the planet. If no one had ever heard that such
things can not be, one might think that these two observations were upon
something that had been seen leaving Venus and had then been seen
farther along. Upon the 3rd of July, 1884, a luminous object was seen
moving slowly in the sky of Norwood, N. Y. It had features that suggest
the structural: a globe the size of the moon, surrounded by a ring; two
dark lines crossing the nucleus (_Science Monthly_, 2-136). Upon the
26th of July, a luminous globe, size of the moon, was seen at Cologne;
it seemed to be moving upward from this earth, then was stationary “some
minutes,” and then continued upward until it disappeared (_Nature_,
30-360). And in the _English Mechanic_, 40-130, it is not said that a
luminous vessel that had sailed out from Venus, in February, visiting
this earth, where it was seen in several places, was seen upon its
return to the planet, but it is said that an observer in Rochester, N.
Y., had, upon August 17, seen a brilliant point upon Venus.