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[Illustration: Paul Renaud.
CONTEMPLATION]
ASTRONOMY FOR
AMATEURS
BY
CAMILLE FLAMMARION
AUTHOR OF POPULAR ASTRONOMY
_AUTHORIZED TRANSLATION BY_
FRANCES A. WELBY
_ILLUSTRATED_
[Illustration]
NEW YORK AND LONDON
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
1910
COPYRIGHT, 1904, BY
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
_Published October, 1904_
TO
MADAME C.R. CAVARE
ORIGINAL MEMBER OF THE ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY OF FRANCE
CHATEAU DE MAUPERTHUIS
MADAME: I have dedicated none of my works, save Stella--offered to the
liberal-minded, the free and generous friend of progress, and patron of
the sciences, James Gordon Bennett, editor of the New York Herald. In
this volume, Madame, I make another exception, and ask your permission
to offer it to the first woman who consented to be enrolled in the list
of members of the Astronomical Society of France, as foundress of this
splendid work, from the very beginning of our vast association (1887);
and who also desired to take part in the permanent organization of the
Observatory at Juvisy, a task of private enterprise, emancipated from
administrative routine. An Astronomy for Women[1] can not be better
placed than upon the table of a lady whose erudition is equal to her
virtues, and who has consecrated her long career to the pursuit and
service of the Beautiful, the Good, and the True.
CAMILLE FLAMMARION.
OBSERVATORY OF JUVISY, _November, 1903_.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
INTRODUCTION 1
I. THE CONTEMPLATION OF THE HEAVENS 10
II. THE CONSTELLATIONS 28
III. THE STARS, SUNS OF THE INFINITE. A JOURNEY
THROUGH SPACE 56
IV. OUR STAR THE SUN 88
V. THE PLANETS. A. MERCURY, VENUS, THE
EARTH, MARS 113
VI. THE PLANETS. B. JUPITER, SATURN, URANUS,
NEPTUNE 146
VII. THE COMETS 172
VIII. THE EARTH 205
IX. THE MOON 232
X. THE ECLIPSES 259
XI. ON METHODS. HOW CELESTIAL DISTANCES
ARE DETERMINED, AND HOW THE SUN IS
WEIGHED 287
XII. LIFE, UNIVERSAL AND ETERNAL 317
INDEX 341
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Contemplation _Frontispiece_
From a painting by Paul Renaud
FIG. PAGE
1. The great Book of the Heavens is open to all eyes 15
2. The earth in space. June solstice, midday 20
3. The Great Bear (or Dipper) and the Pole Star 34
4. To find the Pole Star 35
5. To find Cassiopeia 37
6. To find Pegasus and Andromeda 37
7. Perseus, the Pleiades, Capella 38
8. To find Arcturus, the Herdsman, and the Northern Crown 40
9. The Swan, Vega, the Eagle 41
10. The Constellations of the Zodiac: summer and autumn;
Capricorn, Archer, Scorpion, Balance, Virgin, Lion 46
11. The Constellations of the Zodiac: winter and spring;
Crab, Twins, Bull, Ram, Fishes, Water-Carrier 47
12. Orion and his celestial companions 48
13. Winter Constellations 51
14. Spring Constellations 52
15. Summer Constellations 53
16. Autumn Constellations 54
17. The double star Mizar 69
18. Triple star [xi] in Cancer 72
19. Quadruple star [epsilon] of the Lyre 73
20. Sextuple star [theta] in the Nebula of Orion 74
21. The Star-Cluster in Hercules 79
22. The Star-Cluster in the Centaur 80
23. The Nebula in Andromeda 81
24. Nebula in the Greyhounds 82
25. The Pleiades 83
26. Occultation of the Pleiades by the Moon 85
27. Stellar dial of the double star [gamma] of the Virgin 86
28. Comparative sizes of the Sun and Earth 93
29. Direct photograph of the Sun 96
30. Telescopic aspect of a Sun-Spot 97
31. Rose-colored solar flames 228,000 kilometers (141,500
miles) in height, _i.e._, 18 times the diameter of the
Earth 103
32. Orbits of the four Planets nearest to the Sun 115
33. Orbits of the four Planets farthest from the Sun 116
34. Mercury near quadrature 117
35. The Earth viewed from Mercury 119
36. The Evening Star 123
37. Successive phases of Venus 124
38. Venus at greatest brilliancy 126
39. The Earth viewed from Venus 130
40. Diminution of the polar snows of Mars during the
summer 136
41. Telescopic aspect of the planet Mars (Feb., 1901) 137
42. Telescopic aspect of the planet Mars (Feb., 1901) 138
43. Chart of Mars 140
44. The Earth viewed from Mars 144
45. Telescopic aspect of Jupiter 150
46. Jupiter and his four principal satellites 155
47. Saturn 159
48. Varying perspective of Saturn's Rings, as seen from
the Earth 161
49. The Great Comet of 1858 174
50. What our Ancestors saw in a Comet 177
After Ambroise Pare (1858)
51. Prodigies seen in the Heavens by our Forefathers 178
52. The orbit of a Periodic Comet 182
53. The tails of Comets are opposed to the Sun 185
54. A Meteor 191
55. Shooting Stars of November 12, 1799 196
From a contemporary drawing
56. Fire-Ball seen from the Observatory at Juvisy, August
10, 1899 199
57. Explosion of a Fire-Ball above Madrid, February 10,
1896 200
58. Raphael's Fire-Ball (_The Madonna of Foligno_) 202
59. A Uranolith 203
60. Motion of the Earth round the Sun 222
61. Inclination of the Earth 224
62. The divisions of the globe. Longitudes and latitudes 226
63. To find the long and short months 230
64. The Full Moon slowly rises 234
65. The Moon viewed with the unaided eye 236
66. The Man's head in the Moon 237
67. Woman's head in the Moon 238
68. The kiss in the Moon 239
69. Photograph of the Moon 240
70. The Moon's Phases 241
71. Map of the Moon 247
72. The Lunar Apennines 251
73. Flammarion's Lunar Ring 253
74. Lunar landscape with the Earth in the sky 254
75. Battle between the Medes and Lydians arrested by an
Eclipse of the Sun 266
76. Eclipse of the Moon at Laos (February 27, 1877) 269
77. The path of the Eclipse of May 28, 1900 273
78. Total eclipse of the Sun, May 28, 1900, as observed
from Elche (Spain) 281
79. The Eclipse of May 28, 1900, as photographed by
King Alfonso XIII, at Madrid 285
80. Measurement of Angles 289
81. Division of the Circumference into 360 degrees 291
82. Measurement of the distance of the Moon 292
83. Measurement of the distance of the Sun 297
84. Small apparent ellipses described by the stars as a
result of the annual displacement of the Earth 306
INTRODUCTION
The Science of Astronomy is sublime and beautiful. Noble, elevating,
consoling, divine, it gives us wings, and bears us through Infinitude.
In these ethereal regions all is pure, luminous, and splendid. Dreams of
the Ideal, even of the Inaccessible, weave their subtle spells upon us.
The imagination soars aloft, and aspires to the sources of Eternal
Beauty.
What greater delight can be conceived, on a fine spring evening, at the
hour when the crescent moon is shining in the West amid the last glimmer
of twilight, than the contemplation of that grand and silent spectacle
of the stars stepping forth in sequence in the vast Heavens? All sounds
of life die out upon the earth, the last notes of the sleepy birds have
sunk away, the Angelus of the church hard by has rung the close of day.
But if life is arrested around us, we may seek it in the Heavens. These
incandescing orbs are so many points of interrogation suspended above
our heads in the inaccessible depths of space.... Gradually they
multiply. There is Venus, the white star of the shepherd. There Mars,
the little celestial world so near our own. There the giant Jupiter.
The seven stars of the Great Bear seem to point out the pole, while they
slowly revolve around it.... What is this nebulous light that blanches
the darkness of the heavens, and traverses the constellations like a
celestial path? It is the Galaxy, the Milky Way, composed of millions on
millions of suns!... The darkness is profound, the abyss immense....
See! Yonder a shooting star glides silently across the sky, and
disappears!...
Who can remain insensible to this magic spectacle of the starry Heavens?
Where is the mind that is not attracted to these enigmas? The
intelligence of the amateur, the feminine, no less than the more
material and prosaic masculine mind, is well adapted to the
consideration of astronomical problems. Women, indeed, are naturally
predisposed to these contemplative studies. And the part they are called
to play in the education of our children is so vast, and so important,
that the elements of Astronomy might well be taught by the young mother
herself to the budding minds that are curious about every issue--whose
first impressions are so keen and so enduring.
Throughout the ages women have occupied themselves successfully with
Astronomy, not merely in its contemplative and descriptive, but also in
its mathematical aspects. Of such, the most illustrious was the
beautiful and learned Hypatia of Alexandria, born in the year 375 of our
era, public lecturer on geometry, algebra, and astronomy, and author of
three works of great importance. Then, in that age of ignorance and
fanaticism, she fell a victim to human stupidity and malice, was dragged
from her chariot while crossing the Cathedral Square, in March, 415,
stripped of her garments, stoned to death, and burned as a dishonored
witch!
Among the women inspired with a passion for the Heavens may be cited St.
Catherine of Alexandria, admired for her learning, her beauty and her
virtue. She was martyred in the reign of Maximinus Daza, about the year
312, and has given her name to one of the lunar rings.
Another celebrated female mathematician was Madame Hortense Lepaute,
born in 1723, who collaborated with Clairaut in the immense calculations
by which he predicted the return of Halley's Comet. "Madame Lepaute,"
wrote Lalande, "gave us such immense assistance that, without her, we
should never have ventured to undertake this enormous labor, in which it
was necessary to calculate for every degree, and for a hundred and fifty
years, the distances and forces of the planets acting by their
attraction on the comet. During more than six months, we calculated from
morning to night, sometimes even at table, and as the result of this
forced labor I contracted an illness that has changed my constitution
for life; but it was important to publish the result before the arrival
of the comet."
This extract will suffice for the appreciation of the scientific ardor
of Madame Lepaute. We are indebted to her for some considerable works.
Her husband was clock-maker to the King. "To her intellectual talents,"
says one of her biographers, "were joined all the qualities of the
heart. She was charming to a degree, with an elegant figure, a dainty
foot, and such a beautiful hand that Voiriot, the King's painter, who
had made a portrait of her, asked permission to copy it, in order to
preserve a model of the best in Nature." And then we are told that
learned women can not be good-looking!...
The Marquise du Chatelet was no less renowned. She was predestined to
her career, if the following anecdote be credible. Gabrielle-Emilie de
Breteuil, born in 1706 (who, in 1725, was to marry the Marquis du
Chatelet, becoming, in 1733, the most celebrated friend of Voltaire),
was four or five years old when she was given an old compass, dressed up
as a doll, for a plaything. After examining this object for some time,
the child began angrily and impatiently to strip off the silly draperies
the toy was wrapped in, and after turning it over several times in her
little hands, she divined its uses, and traced a circle with it on a
sheet of paper. To her, among other things, we owe a precious, and
indeed the only French, translation of Newton's great work on universal
gravitation, the famous Principia, and she was, with Voltaire, an
eloquent propagator of the theory of attraction, rejected at that time
by the Academie des Sciences.
Numbers of other women astronomers might be cited, all showing how
accessible this highly abstract science is to the feminine intellect.
President des Brosses, in his charming Voyage en Italie, tells of the
visit he paid in Milan to the young Italian, Marie Agnesi, who delivered
harangues in Latin, and was acquainted with seven languages, and for
whom mathematics held no secrets. She was devoted to algebra and
geometry, which, she said, "are the only provinces of thought wherein
peace reigns." Madame de Charriere expressed herself in an aphorism of
the same order: "An hour or two of mathematics sets my mind at liberty,
and puts me in good spirits; I feel that I can eat and sleep better when
I have seen obvious and indisputable truths. This consoles me for the
obscurities of religion and metaphysics, or rather makes me forget them;
I am thankful there is something positive in this world." And did not
Madame de Blocqueville, last surviving daughter of Marshal Davout, who
died in 1892, exclaim in her turn: "Astronomy, science of sciences! by
which I am attracted, and terrified, and which I adore! By it my soul is
detached from the things of this world, for it draws me to those unknown
spheres that evoked from Newton the triumphant cry: '_Coeli enarrant
gloriam Dei!_'"
Nor must we omit Miss Caroline Herschel, sister of the greatest observer
of the Heavens, the grandest discoverer of the stars, that has ever
lived. Astronomy gave her a long career; she discovered no less than
seven comets herself, and her patient labors preserved her to the age of
ninety-eight.--And Mrs. Somerville, to whom we owe the English
translation of Laplace's Mecanique celeste, of whom Humboldt said, "In
pure mathematics, Mrs. Somerville is absolutely superior." Like Caroline
Herschel, she was almost a centenarian, appearing always much younger
than her years: she died at Naples, in 1872, at the age of
ninety-two.--So, too, the Russian Sophie Kovalevsky, descendant of
Mathias Corvinus, King of Hungary, who, an accomplished mathematician at
sixteen, married at eighteen, in order to follow the curriculum at the
University (then forbidden to unmarried women); arranging with her young
husband to live as brother and sister until their studies should be
completed. In 1888 the Prix Bordin of the Institut was conferred on
her.--And Maria Mitchell of the United States, for whom Le Verrier gave
a _fete_ at the Observatory of Paris, and who was exceptionally
authorized by Pope Pius IX to visit the Observatory of the Roman
College, at that time an ecclesiastical establishment, closed to
women.--And Madame Scarpellini, the Roman astronomer, renowned for her
works on shooting stars, whom the author had the honor of visiting, in
company with Father Secchi, Director of the Observatory mentioned above.
At the present time, Astronomy is proud to reckon among its most famous
workers Miss Agnes Clerke, the learned Irishwoman, to whom we owe,
_inter alia_, an excellent History of Astronomy in the Nineteenth
Century;--Mrs. Isaac Roberts, who, under the familiar name of Miss
Klumpke, sat on the Council of the Astronomical Society of France, and
is D. Sc. of the Faculty of Paris and head of the Bureau for measuring
star photographs at the Observatory of Paris (an American who became
English by her marriage with the astronomer Roberts, but is not
forgotten in France);--Mrs. Fleming, one of the astronomers of the
Observatory at Harvard College, U.S.A., to whom we owe the discovery of
a great number of variable stars by the examination of photographic
records, and by spectral photography;--Lady Huggins, who in England is
the learned collaborator of her illustrious husband;--and many others.
* * * * *
The following chapters, which aim at summing up the essentials of
Astronomy in twelve lessons for amateurs, will not make astronomers or
mathematicians of my readers--much less prigs or pedants. They are
designed to show the constitution of the Universe, in its grandeur and
its beauty, so that, inhabiting this world, we may know where we are
living, may realize our position in the Cosmos, appreciate Creation as
it is, and enjoy it to better advantage. This sun by which we live, this
succession of months and years, of days and nights, the apparent motions
of the heavens, these starry skies, the divine rays of the moon, the
whole totality of things, constitutes in some sort the tissue of our
existence, and it is indeed extraordinary that the inhabitants of our
planet should almost all have lived till now without knowing where they
are, without suspecting the marvels of the Universe.
* * * * *
For the rest, my little book is dedicated to a woman, muse and
goddess--the charming enchantress Urania, fit companion of Venus,
ranking even above her in the choir of celestial beauties, as purer and
more noble, dominating with her clear glance the immensities of the
universe. Urania, be it noted, is feminine, and never would the poetry
of the ancients have imagined a masculine symbol to personify the
pageant of the heavens. Not Uranus, nor Saturn, nor Jupiter can compare
with the ideal beauty of Urania.
Moreover, I have before me two delightful books, in breviary binding,
dated the one from the year 1686, the other from a century later, 1786.
The first was written by Fontenelle for a Marquise, and is entitled
Entretiens sur la Pluralite des Mondes. In this, banter is pleasantly
married with science, the author declaring that he only demands from his
fair readers the amount of application they would concede to a novel.
The second is written by Lalande, and is called Astronomie des Dames. In
addressing myself to both sexes, I am in honorable company with these
two sponsors and esteem myself the better for it.
CHAPTER I
THE CONTEMPLATION OF THE HEAVENS
The crimson disk of the Sun has plunged beneath the Ocean. The sea has
decked itself with the burning colors of the orb, reflected from the
Heavens in a mirror of turquoise and emerald. The rolling waves are gold
and silver, and break noisily on a shore already darkened by the
disappearance of the celestial luminary.
We gaze regretfully after the star of day, that poured its cheerful rays
anon so generously over many who were intoxicated with gaiety and
happiness. We dream, contemplating the magnificent spectacle, and in
dreaming forget the moments that are rapidly flying by. Yet the darkness
gradually increases, and twilight gives way to night.
The most indifferent spectator of the setting Sun as it descends beneath
the waves at the far horizon, could hardly be unmoved by the pageant of
Nature at such an impressive moment.
The light of the Crescent Moon, like some fairy boat suspended in the
sky, is bright enough to cast changing and dancing sparkles of silver
upon the ocean. The Evening Star declines slowly in its turn toward the
western horizon. Our gaze is held by a shining world that dominates the
whole of the occidental heavens. This is the "Shepherd's Star," Venus of
rays translucent.
Little by little, one by one, the more brilliant stars shine out. Here
are the white Vega of the Lyre, the burning Arcturus, the seven stars of
the Great Bear, a whole sidereal population catching fire, like
innumerable eyes that open on the Infinite. It is a new life that is
revealed to our imagination, inviting us to soar into these mysterious
regions.
O Night, diapered with fires innumerable! hast thou not written in
flaming letters on these Constellations the syllables of the great
enigma of Eternity? The contemplation of thee is a wonder and a charm.
How rapidly canst thou efface the regrets we suffered on the departure
of our beloved Sun! What wealth, what beauty hast thou not reserved for
our enraptured souls! Where is the man that can remain blind to such a
pageant and deaf to its language!
To whatever quarter of the Heavens we look, the splendors of the night
are revealed to our astonished gaze. These celestial eyes seem in their
turn to gaze at, and to question us. Thus indeed have they questioned
every thinking soul, so long as Humanity has existed on our Earth. Homer
saw and sung these self-same stars. They shone upon the slow succession
of civilizations that have disappeared, from Egypt of the period of the
Pyramids, Greece at the time of the Trojan War, Rome and Carthage,
Constantine and Charlemagne, down to the Twentieth Century. The
generations are buried with the dust of their ancient temples. The Stars
are still there, symbols of Eternity.
The silence of the vast and starry Heavens may terrify us; its immensity
may seem to overwhelm us. But our inquiring thought flies curiously on
the wings of dream, toward the remotest regions of the visible. It rests
on one star and another, like the butterfly on the flower. It seeks what
will best respond to its aspirations: and thus a kind of communication
is established, and, as it were, protected by all Nature in these silent
appeals. Our sense of solitude has disappeared. We feel that, if only as
infinitesimal atoms, we form part of that immense universe, and this
dumb language of the starry night is more eloquent than any speech. Each
star becomes a friend, a discreet confidant, often indeed a precious
counsellor, for all the thoughts it suggests to us are pure and holy.
Is any poem finer than the book written in letters of fire upon the
tablets of the firmament? Nothing could be more ideal. And yet, the
poetic sentiment that the beauty of Heaven awakens in our soul ought
not to veil its reality from us. That is no less marvelous than the
mystery by which we were enchanted.
And here we may ask ourselves how many there are, even among thinking
human beings, who ever raise their eyes to the starry heavens? How many
men and women are sincerely, and with unfeigned curiosity, interested in
these shining specks, and inaccessible luminaries, and really desirous
of a better acquaintance with them?
Seek, talk, ask in the intercourse of daily life. You, who read these
pages, who already love the Heavens, and comprehend them, who desire to
account for our existence in this world, who seek to know what the Earth
is, and what Heaven--you shall witness that the number of those
inquiring after truth is so limited that no one dares to speak of it, so
disgraceful is it to the so-called intelligence of our race. And yet!
the great Book of the Heavens is open to all eyes. What pleasures await
us in the study of the Universe! Nothing could speak more eloquently to
our heart and intellect!
Astronomy is the science _par excellence_. It is the most beautiful and
most ancient of all, inasmuch as it dates back to the indeterminate
times of highest antiquity. Its mission is not only to make us
acquainted with the innumerable orbs by which our nights are
illuminated, but it is, moreover, thanks to it that we know where and
what we are. Without it we should live as the blind, in eternal
ignorance of the very conditions of our terrestrial existence. Without
it we should still be penetrated with the naive error that reduced the
entire Universe to our minute globule, making our Humanity the goal of
the Creation, and should have no exact notion of the immense reality.
To-day, thanks to the intellectual labor of so many centuries, thanks
also to the immortal genius of the men of science who have devoted their
lives to searching after Truth--men such as Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler,
Newton--the veil of ignorance has been rent, and glimpses of the marvels
of creation are perceptible in their splendid truth to the dazzled eye
of the thinker.
The study of Astronomy is not, as many suppose, the sacrifice of oneself
in a cerebral torture that obliterates all the beauty, the fascination,
and the grandeur of the pageant of Nature. Figures, and naught but
figures, would not be entertaining, even to those most desirous of
instruction. Let the reader take courage! We do not propose that he
shall decipher the hieroglyphics of algebra and geometry. Perish the
thought! For the rest, figures are but the scaffolding, the method, and
do not exist in Nature.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.--The great Book of the Heavens is open to all
eyes.]
We simply beg of you to open your eyes, to see where you are, so that
you may not stray from the path of truth, which is also the path of
happiness. Once you have entered upon it, no persuasion will be needed
to make you persevere. And you will have the profound satisfaction of
knowing that you are thinking correctly, and that it is infinitely
better to be educated than to be ignorant. The reality is far beyond all
dreams, beyond the most fantastic imagination. The most fairy-like
transformations of our theaters, the most resplendent pageants of our
military reviews, the most sumptuous marvels on which the human race can
pride itself--all that we admire, all that we envy on the Earth--is as
nothing compared with the unheard-of wonders scattered through
Infinitude. There are so many that one does not know how to see them.
The fascinated eye would fain grasp all at once.
If you will yield yourselves to the pleasure of gazing upon the
sparkling fires of Space, you will never regret the moments passed all
too rapidly in the contemplation of the Heavens.
Diamonds, turquoises, rubies, emeralds, all the precious stones with
which women love to deck themselves, are to be found in greater
perfection, more beautiful, and more splendid, set in the immensity of
Heaven! In the telescopic field, we may watch the progress of armies of
majestic and powerful suns, from whose attacks there is naught to fear.
And these vagabond comets and shooting stars and stellar nebulae, do they
not make up a prodigious panorama? What are our romances in comparison
with the History of Nature? Soaring toward the Infinite, we purify our
souls from all the baseness of this world, we strive to become better
and more intelligent.
* * * * *
But in the first place, you ask, what are the Heavens? This vault
oppresses us. We can not venture to investigate it.
Heaven, we reply, is no vault, it is a limitless immensity,
inconceivable, unfathomable, that surrounds us on all sides, and in the
midst of which our globe is floating. THE HEAVENS ARE ALL THAT EXISTS,
all that we see, and all that we do not see: the Earth on which we are,
that bears us onward in her rapid flight; the Moon that accompanies us,
and sheds her soft beams upon our silent nights; the good Sun to which
we owe our existence; the Stars, suns of Infinitude; in a word--the
whole of Creation.
Yes, our Earth is an orb of the Heavens: the sky is her domain, and our
Sun, shining above our heads, and fertilizing our seasons, is as much a
star as the pretty sparkling points that scintillate up there, in the
far distance, and embellish the calm of our nights with their
brilliancy. All are in the Heavens, you as well as I, for the Earth, in
her course through Space, bears us with herself into the depths of
Infinitude.
In the Heavens there is neither "above" nor "below." These words do not
exist in celestial speech, because their significance is relative to the
surface of this planet only. In reality, for the inhabitants of the
Earth, "low" is the inside, the center of the globe, and "high" is what
is above our heads, all round the Earth. The Heavens are what surround
us on all sides, to Infinity.
The Earth is, like her fellows, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn,
Uranus, Neptune, one of the planets of the great solar family.
The Sun, her father, protects her, and directs all her actions. She, as
the grateful daughter, obeys him blindly. All float in perfect harmony
over the celestial ocean.
But, you may say, on what does the Earth rest in her ethereal
navigation?
On nothing. The Earth turns round the colossal Sun, a little globe of
relatively light weight, isolated on all sides in Space, like a
soap-bubble blown by some careless child.
Above, below, on all sides, millions of similar globes are grouped into
families, and form other systems of worlds revolving round the numerous
and distant stars that people Infinitude; suns more or less analogous to
that by which we are illuminated, and generally speaking of larger bulk,
although our Sun is a million times larger than our planet.
Among the ancients, before the isolation of our globe in Space and the
motions that incessantly alter its position were recognized, the Earth
was supposed to be the immobile lower half of the Universe. The sky was
regarded as the upper half. The ancients supplied our world with
fantastic supports that penetrated to the Infernal Regions. They could
not admit the notion of the Earth's isolation, because they had a false
idea of its weight. To-day, however, we know positively that the Earth
is based on nothing. The innumerable journeys accomplished round it in
all directions give definite proof of this. It is attached to nothing.
As we said before, there is neither "above" nor "below" in the Universe.
What we call "below" is the center of the Earth. For the rest the Earth
turns upon its own axis in twenty-four hours. Night is only a partial
phenomenon, due to the rotary motion of the planet, a motion that could
not exist under conditions other than that of the absolute isolation of
our globe in space.
[Illustration: FIG. 2.--The earth in space. June solstice, midday.]
Since the Sun can only illuminate one side of our globe at one moment,
that is to say one hemisphere, it follows that Night is nothing but the
state of the part that is not illuminated. As the Earth revolves upon
itself, all the parts successively exposed to the Sun are in the day,
while the parts situated opposite to the Sun, in the cone of shadow
produced by the Earth itself, are in night. But whether it be noon or
midnight, the stars always occupy the same position in the Heavens,
even when, dazzled by the ardent light of the orb of day, we can no
longer see them; and when we are plunged into the darkness of the night,
the god Phoebus still continues to pour his beneficent rays upon the
countries turned toward him.
The sequence of day and night is a phenomenon belonging, properly
speaking, to the Earth, in which the rest of the Universe does not
participate. The same occurs for every world that is illuminated by a
sun, and endowed with a rotary movement. In absolute space, there is no
succession of nights and days.
Upheld in space by forces that will be explained at a later point, our
planet glides in the open heavens round our Sun.
Imagine a magnificent aerostat, lightly and rapidly cleaving space.
Surround it with eight little balloons of different sizes, the smallest
like those sold on the streets for children to play with, the larger,
such as are distributed for a bonus in large stores. Imagine this group
sailing through the air, and you have the system of our worlds in
miniature.
Still, this is only an image, a comparison. The balloons are held up by
the atmosphere, in which they float at equilibrium. The Earth is
sustained by nothing material. What maintains her in equilibrium is the
ethereal void; an immaterial force; gravitation. The Sun attracts her,
and if she did not revolve, she would drop into him; but rotating round
him, at a speed of 107,000 kilometers[2] (about 66,000 miles) per hour,
she produces a centrifugal force, like that of a stone in a sling, that
is precisely equivalent, and of contrary sign, to its gravitation toward
the central orb, and these two equilibrated forces keep her at the same
medium distance.
This solar and planetary group does not exist solitary in the immense
void that extends indefinitely around us. As we said above, each star
that we admire in the depths of the sky, and to which we lift up our
eyes and thoughts during the charmed hours of the night, is another sun
burning with its own light, the chief of a more or less numerous family,
such as are multiplied through all space to infinity. Notwithstanding
the immense distances between the sun-stars, Space is so vast, and the
number of these so great, that by an effect of perspective due solely to
the distance, appearances would lead us to believe that the stars were
touching. And under certain telescopic aspects, and in some of the
astral photographs, they really do appear to be contiguous.
The Universe is infinite. Space is limitless. If our love for the
Heavens should incite in us the impulse, and provide us with the means
of undertaking a journey directed to the ends of Heaven as its goal, we
should be astonished, on arriving at the confines of the Milky Way, to
see the grandiose and phenomenal spectacle of a new Universe unfold
before our dazzled eyes; and if in our mad career we crossed this new
archipelago of worlds to seek the barriers of Heaven beyond them, we
should still find universe eternally succeeding to universe before us.
Millions of suns roll on in the immensities of Space. Everywhere, on all
sides, Creation renews itself in an infinite variety.
According to all the probabilities, universal life is distributed there
as well as here, and has sown the germ of intelligence upon those
distant worlds that we divine in the vicinity of the innumerable suns
that plow the ether, for everything upon the Earth tends to show that
Life is the goal of Nature. Burning foci, inextinguishable sources of
warmth and light, these various, multi-colored suns shed their rays upon
the worlds that belong to them and which they fertilize.
Our globe is no exception in the Universe. As we have seen, it is one of
the celestial orbs, nourished, warmed, lighted, quickened by the Sun,
which in its turn again is but a star.
Innumerable Worlds! We dream of them. Who can say that their unknown
inhabitants do not think of us in their turn, and that Space may not be
traversed by waves of thought, as it is by the vibrations of light and
universal gravitation? May not an immense solidarity, hardly guessed at
by our imperfect senses, exist between the Celestial Humanities, our
Earth being only a modest planet.
Let us meditate on this Infinity! Let us lose no opportunity of
employing the best of our hours, those of the silence and peace of the
bewitching nights, in contemplating, admiring, spelling out the words of
the Great Book of the Heavens. Let our freed souls fly swift and rapt
toward those marvelous countries where indescribable joys are prepared
for us, and let us do homage to the first and most splendid of the
sciences, to Astronomy, which diffuses the light of Truth within us.
To poetical souls, the contemplation of the Heavens carries thought away
to higher regions than it attains in any other meditation. Who does not
remember the beautiful lines of Victor Hugo in the Orientales? Who has
not heard or read them? The poem is called "Ecstasy," and it is a
fitting title. The words are sometimes set to music, and the melody
seems to complete their pure beauty:
J'etais seul pres des flots par une nuit d'etoiles.
Pas un nuage aux cieux, sur les mers pas de voiles;
Mes yeux plongeaient plus loin que le monde reel,
Et les bois et les monts et toute la nature
Semblaient interroger, dans un confus murmure,
Les flots des mers, les feux du ciel.
Et les etoiles d'or, legions infinies,
A voix haute, a voix basse, avec mille harmonies
Disaient, en inclinant leurs couronnes de feu;
Et les flots bleus, que rien ne gouverne et n'arrete,
Disaient en recourbant l'ecume de leur crete:
... C'est le Seigneur, le Seigneur Dieu!
_Note: Free Translation_
I was alone on the waves, on a starry night,
Not a cloud in the sky, not a sail in sight,
My eyes pierced beyond the natural world...
And the woods, and the hills, and the voice of Nature
Seemed to question in a confused murmur,
The waves of the Sea, and Heaven's fires.
And the golden stars in infinite legion,
Sang loudly, and softly, in glad recognition,
Inclining their crowns of fire;...
And the waves that naught can check nor arrest
Sang, bowing the foam of their haughty crest...
Behold the Lord God--Jehovah!
The immortal poet of France was an astronomer. The author more than
once had the honor of conversing with him on the problems of the starry
sky--and reflected that astronomers might well be poets.
It is indeed difficult to resist a sense of profound emotion before the
abysses of infinite Space, when we behold the innumerable multitude of
worlds suspended above our heads. We feel in this solitary contemplation
of the Heavens that there is more in the Universe than tangible and
visible matter: that there are forces, laws, destinies. Our ants' brains
may know themselves microscopic, and yet recognize that there is
something greater than the Earth, the Heavens;--more absolute than the
Visible, the Invisible;--beyond the more or less vulgar affairs of life,
the sense of the True, the Good, the Beautiful. We feel that an immense
mystery broods over Nature,--over Being, over created things. And it is
here again that Astronomy surpasses all the other sciences, that it
becomes our sovereign teacher, that it is the _pharos_ of modern
philosophy.
O Night, mysterious, sublime, and infinite! withdrawing from our eyes
the veil spread above us by the light of day, giving back transparency
to the Heavens, showing us the prodigious reality, the shining casket of
the celestial diamonds, the innumerable stars that succeed each other
interminably in immeasurable space! Without Night we should know
nothing. Without it our eyes would never have divined the sidereal
population, our intellects would never have pierced the harmony of the
Heavens, and we should have remained the blind, deaf parasites of a
world isolated from the rest of the universe. O Sacred Night! If on the
one hand it rests upon the heights of Truth beyond the day's illusions,
on the other its invisible urns pour down a silent and tranquil peace, a
penetrating calm, upon our souls that weary of Life's fever. It makes us
forget the struggles, perfidies, intrigues, the miseries of the hours of
toil and noisy activity, all the conventionalities of civilization. Its
domain is that of rest and dreams. We love it for its peace and calm
tranquillity. We love it because it is true. We love it because it
places us in communication with the other worlds, because it gives us
the presage of Life, Universal and Eternal, because it brings us Hope,
because it proclaims us citizens of Heaven.