Page images
PDF
EPUB
[graphic][merged small][merged small]

SAVING BIRDS FROM DESTRUCTION BIRD lovers all over the world have long mourned the fact that many migrating birds are lured to destruction by the glare of lighthouses. The slaughter of birds in this way is very great, far larger than is commonly supposed. As an instance of this, at the beacon on St. Catherine's Point, England (one of Europe's brightest lights), on one autumn morning last year, the bodies of no less than five hundred birds were picked up at the foot of the lighthouse! At a beacon in the Gulf of Mexico huge pelicans weighing forty pounds or more dash themselves to pulp against the building. Curiously enough it is only the isolated lighthouses that seem to attract the birds; such as are close to

towns, where there is an independent glare of light, are hardly noticed by the birds at all. It is tragic to think of all these feathered travelers dashing themselves to their death during the migration seasons. But apart from this, the matter is of economic importance. Many of the birds that are killed are such as are of great service to farmers in keeping down pests that destroy crops. Naturally, the very object of a lighthouse is to show its light, and nothing that interrupts the glare which draws the birds is permissible.

Luckily, a means of saving the birds without interfering with the light has been tried with good results in Holland. It has been found that if the birds were given something on which to perch, they rested for awhile looking at the light and then resumed their flight uninjured. At a certain lighthouse, rails made of gas-pipe were provided. These were adjusted so that they were a little below the direct glare of the light. Hundreds of birds were seen to pitch straight onto the perches, instead of flying at the light. Then, after an interval, they winged their way. onward toward their destination. Since providing these perching-places, not a single bird has been killed-a most gratifying result. Probably it will not be long before all isolated lighthouses will be provided with perching-places upon which the winged wayfarers can rest. S. LEONARD BASTIN.

AN ICE BURNING-GLASS A FASCINATING little pastime for the winter is the making of an ice burning-glass. For the purpose, secure a bowl with a rounded bottom. This should be made of enameled ware or some metal, so that it will not crack. Fill the bowl with water and then place it outdoors in freezing weather. When the water has frozen solid, place a cloth wrung from hot water on the outside of the bowl, and the ice soon thaws sufficiently to release the lump. You will then have a rough lense which, if it is not less than eight inches in diameter, will act as a very efficient burningglass. Place the ice so that the rays of the sun fall directly on either the flat or the convex side. The heat rays will pass readily through the ice; and if the hand is put somewhere near the visible focus, a burning sensation that can not long be borne will be felt. A piece of paper placed so that the focus of the rays are steadily concentrated on it will soon catch fire.

S. LEONARD BASTIN.

THE CONSTELLATIONS FOR FEBRUARY STRETCHED across the meridian, due south, between eight and nine o'clock in the evening in the early part of February, lies Orion, The Warrior, generally considered to be the finest constellation in the heavens. Orion is directly overhead at the equator, and so is visible from all parts of the world except the extreme northern and southern polar regions.

A group of three faint stars mark the head of Orion. His right shoulder is marked by the deep-red star Betelgeuze (meaning armpit), and his left shoulder by the bright white star Bellatrix, The Amazon. Orion stands facing Taurus, The Bull, and brandishes in his right hand a club, outlined by a number of faint stars extending from Betelgeuze toward the northeast. The top of the club lies near the tips of the horns of Taurus. In

[blocks in formation]

Even

six stars; that is, it is a sextuple star.
with a small telescope, four of these stars
can readily be seen, arranged in the form of
a small trapezium (a figure contained by four
straight lines, no two of which are parallel).
The lowest star in the sword is a triple star,
and the entire constellation abounds in
double, triple, and multiple stars.

From the central portion of the nebula extend many branches and streamers of nebulous light, and it is known that the entire constellation of Orion is enwrapped in the folds of this nebulosity, which forms a glowing, whirling mass of fiery gases rapidly rotating in certain parts. This constellation is remarkable for the fact that all of its brighter stars, with the exception of the deep-red Betelgeuze, form one great group of stars occupying the same part of space. They are all more or less associated with the great nebula and its branches, and are all extremely hot white or bluish-white stars, known as helium stars, because the gas helium occurs to such a great extent in their atmospheres. The Orion stars are the hottest and brightest of all the stars.

Blazing Rigel, Bellatrix, and Saiph, markW. ing three corners of the great quadrilateral, of which Betelgeuze marks the fourth corner, are all brilliant helium stars. So are the three stars in the Belt and the fainter stars in the Sword and the great nebula.

[graphic]

his left hand he holds up a lion's skin, which we can trace in another curving line of faint stars to the west and northwest of Bellatrix. The brilliant, blue-white, first-magnitude star Rigel lies in the left foot, and the secondmagnitude star Saiph, a little to the east of Rigel, is in the right knee. Three evenly spaced stars in a straight line that is exactly three degrees in length form the Belt of Orion, and from the Belt hangs the Sword of Orion, outlined by three faint stars. The central star in the sword appears somewhat blurred and is the multiple star Theta, in the midst of the great Orion nebula, the finest object of its kind in the heavens. Entangled in the meshes of this glowing nebula are a number of brilliant suns, appearing to us as faint stars because of their great distance. The star Theta, in the heart of the nebula, is seen with a powerful telescope to consist of

It has been estimated that the great Orion group of stars is over six hundred light-years from the earth, or about forty million times more distant than the sun. For more than six centuries the rays of light that now enter our eyes from these stars have been traveling through space with the speed of lightning. So we see Orion not as it is to-day, but as it was six centuries ago. The extent of the Orion group of stars is also inconceivably great. Even the central part of the great nebula, which appears to our unaided eyes only as a somewhat fuzzy star, would extend from here to the nearest star and beyond, while our entire solar system would be not much more than a speck in its midst.

Betelgeuze, the red star that marks the right shoulder of Orion, is, as we have said, not a member of the Orion group. It has been estimated that it is about two hundred light-years from the earth, which means that it is only about one third as far away as the other stars of the constellation.

Betelgeuze very recently has attracted universal attention, and will probably be considered an object of historic interest in the

future, because it is the first star to have its diameter measured with the new Michelson Interferometer, as it is called, which is now being used so successfully to measure the diameters of the largest stars. The truly sensational discovery has been made that Betelgeuze is a supergiant of the universe, with a diameter of about 275,000,000 miles. Our own sun, which is an averaged-sized star, has a diameter of 864,000 miles. That is, Betelgeuze would make more than thirty million suns the size of our own. If placed at the center of the solar system, it would fill all of the space within the orbit of Mars; and the planets Mercury, Venus, and the earth would be mere specks, lying far beneath its surface. Measurements of the diameters of other giant stars which are now being made with the interferometer give results quite as startling as have been obtained in the case of Betelgeuze; and it has been found that several of these stars may even exceed Betelgeuze in size. Such a star is Antares, the fiery-red star in the heart of Scorpio, which is such a conspicuous object in the summer evening skies. All these huge stars are deep red in color, and some of them vary irregularly in brightness. Betelgeuze is one of the stars that changes in brightness in a peculiar manner from time to time. When shining with its greatest brilliancy it is a brighter object than the near-by star Aldebaran, in Taurus; but a few months or a year later it may lose so much of its light as to be decidedly inferior to Aldebaran. We may observe this remarkable change in the brightness of Betelgeuze by comparing the two stars from time to time.

Directly south of Orion lies the small constellation of Lepus, The Hare, which is made up of third- and fourth-magnitude stars. The four brighter stars are arranged in the form of a small, but distinct, quadrilateral, or four-sided figure, which is easily visible in our latitudes. The small constellation of Columba, The Dove, which lies just south of Lepus, is so close to the horizon that it can not be seen to advantage in the mid-latitudes of the northern hemisphere. Neither Lepus nor Columba contain any object of unusual interest.

Due north of Orion, and lying in the zenith at this time, is Auriga, The Charioteer, who is represented, strange to say, with Capella, a goat, in his arms. This beautiful firstmagnitude star Capella, golden-yellow in color, serves to identify the constellation. Close at hand are The Kids, represented by

[merged small][graphic][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][merged small]

be considerably fainter than any one of the three stars in the near-by group of The Kids.

Capella is attended by a companion star so close to its brilliant ruler that it can not be seen as a separate star with the aid of the most powerful telescopes. Its distance from Capella has been very accurately measured, however, by means of the new interferometer, which is also giving us measurements of the diameters of the giant stars. It is known that this companion sun is closer to Capella than our planet earth is to the sun.

At no time of the year shall we find near the meridian so many brilliant and beautiful stars as appear in the month of February at this time in the evening. In addition to Capella, which is one of the three most brilliant stars in the northern half of the heavens, we have, in Orion alone, two stars of the first magnitude, Betelgeuze and Rigel, and five stars of the second magnitude, Bellatrix and Saiph and the three stars in the Belt. In addition, we have not far distant in the western sky fiery Aldebaran, in Taurus, and close on the heel of Orion in the east, Sirius, the brightest star in the heavens, in the constellation of Canis Major, The Greater Dog, as well as the first-magnitude star Procyon in Canis Minor, The Lesser Dog. Of these two groups we shall have more to say under the constellations for March.

ISABEL M. LEWIS.

[blocks in formation]
[graphic][merged small][graphic][subsumed][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]
« PreviousContinue »