the stars were out in their very best humour, looking so clear and merry in their twinkling; while the milky way stole out to view in all its maiden, lily beauty. can we wonder, then, that our young voyager sang out—
“o what a splendid starlight night! there seems to be ever so many more stars than usual. can any one count them all?
yes; those you now see are about 2000. but the telescope shows us far more. there are 50,000 regularly catalogued. a magnifying power of 180 would give 20,000,000. a small patch of the milky way has revealed millions of stars.
milky way, father! o that is that serpent-like twisting of white stuff across the heavens. but why should it look so white and all other parts so black?
because it is there that most of the stars lie, and give out the brightest light.
but i don’t see that the milk is all stars.
take up the telescope and look at that white patch near that red star.
what a pretty sight! why, a lot of the milk has turned into stars already. i am sure there must be a tremendous lot to be seen through the telescope of an astronomer.
do you remember the milky way on the northern side of the equator?
yes, father, and i think it a prettier looking[pg 61] white snake in the sky than this one up here, for it had more spangling stars about it.
i must say that the northern constellations are more brilliant than those of the south.
and what a great bit of the south side has hardly any stars at all. just look, father, there to the westward, and there to the eastward. they both look as if lighted up with a few children’s toy-candles, compared to the dazzling light of the north, and right overhead toward the south.
the milky way is narrowest near the southern cross, and widens both ways after. near the scorpion’s tail it is very broad—about twenty degrees, while at the cross it is about four degrees. there is a curious opening in it near sirius, like a long, narrow, dark lake among the mountains of snow.
and i can see one star at the end, like a ship in full sail upon the lake.
the milky way runs up in threads near the scorpion. from the swan down to the southern cross it is in two bright lines, enclosing a long dark space.
but look at the two pretty bridges over the black waters, connecting the two shining walks at the sides.
you remember, then, that the milky way, seen in the north and south, is a great ring of different breadths going round the heavens, and passing at some little distance from both poles.
it is like the egyptian story you told me, father, of the people worshipping a serpent with his tail in his mouth. how singular that[pg 62] this milk-stream should be poured right round the heavens in a huge broad circle!
the galaxy, or milky way, is seen to great advantage near the cross.
it is about the milkiest in that quarter. and i can make a good guess now about the two magellanic clouds, as the captain called them—these two clouds of light not far from the cross. why, they are only places where the shining stuff is thickest.
you would, then, really believe there might be lots of stars in those clouds.
yes; but what are the two black clouds?
look at them attentively, and tell me what you think of them?
there is no milk there, anyhow. i suppose they look black by contrast with the bright clouds near. how cold and dreary they seem! and yet now i can make out a few stars scattered about, like ships on a big sea at a great distance from one another.
the early navigators southward used to call them the coal sacks, because so black.
why, the southern cross seems to rise from that pear-shaped coal sack, and all at once to get crowned with a blaze of light.
true, my dear boy. the cross of our faith has often brought man from the darkness of doubt and misery into the glorious light of freedom and hope.
thank you, kind father, for saying that. i do trust i may always have the cross shining on my way through life.”
