Banded sandstone from Calico Cañon, South DakotaBanded sandstone from Calico Cañon, South Dakota
By permission of the American Museum of Natural History Opalized wood from UtahBy permission of the American Museum of Natural HistoryOpalized wood from Utah
By permission of the American Museum of Natural History Restoration of a carnivorous Dinosaur, Allosaurus, from the Upper Jurassic and Lower Cretaceous of Wyoming. When erect the animal was about 15 feet highBy permission of the American Museum of Natural HistoryRestoration of a carnivorous Dinosaur, Allosaurus, from the Upper Jurassic and Lower Cretaceous of Wyoming. When erect the animal was about 15 feet high
The fish-reptile,Ichthyosaurus, was a hump-backed creature, thirty to forty feet long, with short neck, very large head, and long jaw, set with hundreds of pointed teeth. Its eye sockets were a foot across. The four short limbs were strong paddles, used for swimming. The long, slender tail ended in a flat fin. Perfect skeletons of this creature have been found. Its rival in the sea was the lizard-likePlesiosaurus, the small head of which was mounted on a long neck. The tail was short, but the paddles were long and powerful. No doubt this agile creature held its own, though somewhat smaller than the more massively built Ichthyosaurus.
The land reptiles calledDinosaurswere the largest creatures that have ever walked the earth. In the American Museum of Natural History, in New York, the mounted skeleton of the giant Dinosaur fairly takes one's breath away. It is sixty-six feet long, and correspondingly large in every part, except its head. This massive creature was remarkably short of brains.
The strangest thing about the land reptiles is the fact that certain of them walked on their hind legs, like birds, and made three-toed tracks in the mud. Indeed, these fossil tracks, found in slate, were called bird tracks, until the bones of the reptile skeleton with the bird-like foot were discovered. Certain long grooves in the slate, hitherto unexplained, were made by the long tail that dragged in the mud.
When the mud dried, and was later covered with sediment of another kind, these prints were preserved, and when the bed of rock was discovered by quarrymen, the two kinds split apart, showingthe record of the stroll of a giant along the river bank in bygone days.
The flying reptiles were still more bird-like in structure, though gigantic in size. Imagine the appearance of a great lizard with bat-like, webbed wings and bat-like, toothed jaws! The first feathered fossil bird was discovered in the limestone rock of Bavaria. It was a wonderfully preserved fossil, showing the feathers perfectly. Three fingers of each "hand" were free and clawed, so that the creature could seize its prey, and yet use its feathered wings in flight. The small head had jaws set with socketed teeth, like a reptile's, and the long, lizard tail of twenty-one bones had a pair of side feathers at each joint. ThisArcheopteryxis the reptilian ancestor of birds. During this age of the world, one branch of the reptile group established the family line of birds. The bird-like reptiles are the connecting link between the two races. How much both birds and reptiles have changed from that ancient type, their common ancestor!
I have mentioned but a few of the types of animals that make the reptilian age the wonder of all time. One after another skeletons are unearthed and new species are found. The Connecticut River Valley, with its red sandstones and shales of the Mesozoic Era, is famous among geologists, because it preserves the tracks of reptiles, insects, and crustaceans. These signs tell much of the life that existed when these flakes of stone were sandy and muddy stretches Not many bones have been found, however. The thickness of these rocks is between one and two miles. The time required to accumulate so much sediment must have been very great.
By permission of the American Museum of Natural History Model of a three-horned Dinosaur, Triceratops, from Cretaceous of Montana. Animal in life about 25 feet longBy permission of the American Museum of Natural HistoryModel of a three-horned Dinosaur, Triceratops, from Cretaceous of Montana. Animal in life about 25 feet long
By permission of the American Museum of Natural History Mounting the forelegs of Brontosaurus, the aquatic DinosaurBy permission of the American Museum of Natural HistoryMounting the forelegs of Brontosaurus, the aquatic Dinosaur
It is not clear just what caused the race of giant reptiles to decline and pass away. The climate did not materially change. Perhaps races grow old, and ripe for death, after living long on the earth. It seems as if their time was up; and the clumsy giants abdicated their reign, leaving dominion over the sea, the air, and the land to those animals adapted to take the places they were obliged to vacate.
The warm-blooded birds and mammals followed the reptiles. This does not mean that all reptiles died, after having ruled the earth for thousands of years. It means that changes in climate and other life conditions were unfavourable to the giants of the cold-blooded races, and gradually they passed away. They are represented now on the earth by lesser reptiles, which live comfortably with the wild creatures of other tribes, but which in no sense rule in the brute creation. They live rather a lurking, cautious life, and have to hide from enemies, except a few more able kinds, provided with means of defense.
There were mammals on the earth in the days of reptilian supremacy, but they were small in size and numbers, and had to avoid any open conflict with the giant reptiles, or be worsted in a fight. Now the time came when the ruling power changed hands. The mammals had their turn at ruling the lower animals. It was the beginning of things as they are to-day, for mammals still rule. But many millions of years have probably stood between the age when this group of animals first began to swarm over the earth,and the time when Man came to be ruler over all created things.
Among the reptiles of the period when the sea, the land, and the air were swarming with these great creatures were certain kinds that had traits of mammals. Others were bird-like. From these reptilian ancestors birds and mammals have sprung. No one doubts this. The fossils prove it, step by step.
Yet the rocks surprise the geologist with the suddenness with which many new kinds of mammals appeared on the earth. Possibly the rocks containing the bones of so many kinds were fortunately located. The spots may have been morasses where migrating mammals were overwhelmed while passing. Possibly conditions favored the rapid development of new kinds, and the multiplication of their numbers. Warm, moist climate furnished abundant succulent plant food for the herbivors, and these in turn furnished prey for the carnivors.
The coal formed during the Tertiary Period gives added proof that the plant life was luxuriant. The kinds of trees that grew far north of our present warm zones have left in the rocks evidence in the form of perfect leaves and cones and other fruits. For instance, magnolias grew in Greenland, and palm trees in Dakota. The temperature of Greenland was thirty degrees warmer than it is now. Our Northern States lie in a belt that must have had a climate much like that of Florida now. Europe was correspondingly mild.
A special chapter tells of the gradual development of the horse. One hundred different kinds of mammals have been found in the Eocene rocks, many of which have representative species at the same time in Europe and America. The rocks of Asia probably have similar records.
The Eocene rocks, lowest of the Tertiary strata, contain remains of animals the families of which are now extinct. Next overlying the Eocene, the Miocene rocks have fossils of animals belonging to modern families—rhinoceroses, camels, deer, dogs, cats, horses—but the genera of which are now extinct. The Pliocene strata (above the Miocene) contains fossils of animals so closely related to the wild animals now on the earth as to belong to the same genera. They differ from modern kinds only in the species, as the red squirrel is a different species from the gray.
So the record in the rocks shows a gradual approach of the mammals to the kinds we know, a gradual passing of the mighty forms that ruled by size and strength, and the coming of forms with greater intelligence, adapted to the change to a colder climate.
It sometimes happens that a farmer, digging a well on the prairie, strikes the skeleton of a monster mammal, called themastodon. This very thing happened on a neighbour's farm when I was a girl, in Iowa. Everybody was excited. The owner of the land dug out every bone, careful that the whole skeleton be found. As he expected, the director of a museum was glad to pay a high price for the bones.
By permission of the American Museum of Natural History Restoration of an aquatic Dinosaur, Brontosaurus excelsus, from the Upper Jurassic and Lower Cretaceous of Wyoming. The animal in life was over 60 feet longBy permission of the American Museum of Natural HistoryRestoration of an aquatic Dinosaur, Brontosaurus excelsus, from the Upper Jurassic and Lower Cretaceous of Wyoming. The animal in life was over 60 feet long
By permission of the American Museum of Natural History Restoration of the small carnivorous Dinosaur, Ornitholestes hermanui, catching a primitive bird Archæopteryx. Upper Jurassic and Lower CretaceousBy permission of the American Museum of Natural HistoryRestoration of the small carnivorous Dinosaur, Ornitholestes hermanui, catching a primitive bird Archæopteryx. Upper Jurassic and Lower Cretaceous
The mastodon was about the size of an elephant, with massive limbs, and large, heavy head that bore two stout, up-curved tusks of ivory. The creature moved in herds like the buffalo from swamp to swamp; and old age coming on, the individual, unable to keep up with the herd, sank to his death in the boggy ground. The peat accumulated over his bones, undisturbed until thousands of years elapse, and the chance digging of a well discovers his skeleton.
Frozen in the ice of northern Siberia, near the mouths of rivers, a number of mammoths have been found. These are creatures of the elephant family, and belonging to the extinct race that lived in the Quaternary Period, just succeeding the Tertiary. The ice overtook the specimens, and they have been in cold storage ever since. For this reason, both flesh and bones are preserved, a rare thing to happen, and rarer still to be seen by a scientist.
The ignorant natives made a business of watching the ice masses at the river mouth for dark spots that showed where a mammoth was encased in the ice. If an iceberg broke off near such a place, the sun might thaw the ice front of the glacier, until the hairy monster could at length be reached. His long hair served for many uses, and the wool that grew under the hair was used as a protection from theArctic winter. The frozen flesh was eaten; the bones carved into useful tools; but the chief value of the find was in the great tusks of ivory, that curved forward and pointed over the huge shoulders. It was worth a fortune to get a pair and sell them to a buyer from St. Petersburg.
One of the finest museum specimens of the mammoth was secured by buying the tusks of the dealer, and by his aid tracing the location of the carcass, which was found still intact, except that dogs had eaten away part of one foreleg, bone and all. From this carefully preserved specimen, models have been made, exactly copying the shape and the size of the animal, its skin, hair, and other details.
The sabre-toothed tiger, the sharp tusks of which, six to eight inches long, made it a far more ferocious beast than any modern tiger of tropical jungles, was a Quaternary inhabitant of Europe and America. So was a smaller tiger, and a lion. The Irish elk, which stood eleven feet high, with antlers that spread ten feet apart at the tips, was monarch in the deer family, which had several different species on both continents. Wild horses and wild cattle, one or two of great size, roamed the woods, while rhinos and the hippopotamus kept near the water-courses. Hyenas skulked in the shadows, and acted as scavengers where the great beasts of prey had feasted. Sloths and cuirassed animals, like giant armadillos, lived in America. Among bears was one, the cave bear, larger than the grizzly. True monkeysclimbed the trees. Flamingo, parrots, and tall secretary birds followed the giantgastornis, the ancestor of wading birds and ostriches, which stood ten feet high, but had wings as small and useless as the auk of later times.
With the entrance of the modern types of trees, came other flowering plants, and with them the insects that live on the nectar of flowers. Through a long line of primitive forms, now extinct, flowering plants and their insect friends conform to modern types. The record is written in the great stone book.
The Age of Mammals in America and Europe ended with the gradual rise of the continental areas, and a fall of temperature that ushered in the Ice Age. With the death of tropical vegetation, the giant mammals passed away.
Every city has a horse market, where you may look over hundreds of animals and select one of any colour, size, or kind. The least in size and weight is the Shetland pony, which one man buys for his children to drive or ride. Another man wants a long-legged, deep-chested hunter. Another wants heavy draught-horses, with legs like great pillars under them, and thick, muscular necks—horses weighing nearly a ton apiece and able to draw the heaviest trucks. What a contrast between these slow but powerful animals and the graceful, prancing racer with legs like pipe-stems—fleet and agile, but not strong enough to draw a heavy load!
All these different breeds of horses have been developed since man succeeded in capturing the wild horse and making it help him. Man himself was still a savage, and he had to fight with wild beasts, as if he were one of them, until he discovered that he could conquer them by some power higher than physical strength. From this point on, human intelligence has been the power that rules the lower animals. Its gradual development is the story of the advance of civilization on the earth. Through unknown thousands of years it has gone on, and it is not yet finished.
By permission of the American Museum of Natural History Restoration of a Siberian mammoth, Elephas primogenius, pursued by men of the old stone age of Europe. Late Pleistocene epochBy permission of the American Museum of Natural HistoryRestoration of a Siberian mammoth, Elephas primogenius, pursued by men of the old stone age of Europe. Late Pleistocene epoch
By permission of the American Museum of Natural History Restoration of a small four-toed ancestor of the horse family, Eohippus venticolus. Lower Eocene of WyomingBy permission of the American Museum of Natural HistoryRestoration of a small four-toed ancestor of the horse family, Eohippus venticolus. Lower Eocene of Wyoming
Just when and where and how our savage ancestors succeeded in taming the wild horse of the plains and the forests of Europe or Asia is unknown. Man first made friends with the wild sheep, which were probably more docile than wild oxen and horses. We can imagine cold and hungry men seeking shelter from storms in rocky hollows, where sheep were huddled. How warm the woolly coats of these animals felt to their human fellow-creatures crowded in with them in the dark!
It is believed that the primitive men who used stone axes as implements and weapons, learned to use horses to aid them in their hunting, and in their warfare with beasts and other men. Gradually these useful animals were adapted to different uses; and at length different breeds were evolved. Climate and food supply had much to do with the size and the character of the breeds. In the Shetland Islands the animals are naturally dwarfed by the cold, bleak winters, and the scant vegetation on which they subsist. In middle Europe, where the summers are long and the winters mild, vegetation is luxurious, and the early horses developed large frames and heavy muscles. The Shetland pony and the Percheron draught-horse are the two extremes of size.
What man has done in changing the types of horses is to emphasize natural differences. The offspring of the early heavy horses became heavier than theirparents. The present draught-horse was produced, after many generations, all of which gradually approached the type desired. The slender racehorses, bred for speed and endurance rather than strength, are the offspring of generations of parents that had these qualities strongly marked. Hence came the English thoroughbred and the American trotter.
We can read in books the history of breeds of horses. Our knowledge of what horses were like in prehistoric times is scant. It is written in layers of rock that are not very deep, but are uncovered only here and there, and only now and then seen by eyes that can read the story told by fossil skeletons of horses of the ages long past.
Geologists have unearthed from time to time skeletons of horses. It was Professor Marsh who spent so much time in studying the wonderful beds of fossil mammals in the western part of this country, and found among them the skeletons of many species of horses that lived here with camels and elephants and rhinoceroses and tigers, long before the time of man's coming.
How can any one know that these bones belonged to a horse's skeleton? Because some of them are like the bones of a modern horse. It is an easy matter for a student of animal anatomy to distinguish a horse from a cow by its bones. The teeth and the foot are enough. These are important and distinguishing characters. It is by peculiarities in the formation of the bones of the foot that thedifferent species of extinct horses are recognized by geologists.
Wild horses still exist in the wilds of Russia. Remains of the same species have been dug out of the soil and found in caves in rocky regions. Deeper in the earth are found the bones of horses differing from those now living. The bones of the foot indicate a different kind of horse—an unknown species. But in the main features, the skeleton is distinctly horse-like.
In rocks of deeper strata the fossil bones of other horses are found. They differ somewhat from those found in rocks nearer the surface of the earth, and still more from those of the modern horse. The older the rocks, the more the fossil horse differs from the modern. Could you think of a more interesting adventure than to find the oldest rocks that show the skeletons of horses?
The foot of a horse is a long one, though we think of it as merely the part he walks on. A horse walks on the end of his one toe. The nail of the toe we call the "hoof." The true heel is the hock, a sharp joint like an elbow nearly half way up the leg. Along each side of the cannon, the long bone of this foot, lies a splint of bone, which is the remnant of a toe, that is gradually being obliterated from the skeleton. These two splints in the modern horse's foot tell the last chapter of an interesting story. The earliest American horse, the existence of which is proved by fossil bones, tells the first chapter. Thestory has been read backward by geologists. It is told by a series of skeletons, found in successive strata of rock.
The "Bad Lands" of the arid Western States are rich in fossil remains of horses. Below the surface soil lie the rocks of the Quaternary Period, which included the drift laid down by the receding glaciers and the floods that followed the melting of the ice-sheet. Under the Quaternary lie the Tertiary rocks. These comprise three series, called the Eocene, Miocene, and Pliocene, the Eocene being the oldest. In the middle region of North America, ponds and marshy tracts were filled in during the Tertiary Period, by sediment from rivers; and in these beds of clay and other rock débris the remains of fresh-water and land animals are preserved. Raised out of water, and exposed to erosive action of wind and water, these deposits are easily worn away, for they have not the solidity of older rocks. They are the crumbly Bad Lands of the West, cut through by rivers, and strangely sculptured by wind and rain. Here the fossil horses have been found.
Eohippus, the dawn horse, is the name given a skeleton found in 1880 in the lower Eocene strata in Wyoming. This specimen lay buried in a rock formation ages older than that in which the oldest known skeleton of this family had been found. Its discovery made a great sensation among scientists. This little animal, the skeleton of which is no larger than that of a fox, had four perfect toes, and a fifthsplint on the forefoot, and three toes on the hind foot. The teeth are herbivorous.
Orohippus, with a larger skeleton, was found in the middle Eocene strata of Wyoming. Its feet are like those of its predecessor, except that the splint is gone. The teeth as well as the feet are more like those of the modern horse.
Mesohippus, the three-toed horse, found in the Miocene, shows the fourth toe reduced to splints, and the skeleton as big as that of a sheep. In this the horse family becomes fairly established.
Hypohippus, the three-toed forest horse, found in the middle Miocene strata of Colorado, is a related species, but not a direct ancestor of the modern horse.
Neohipparion, the three-toed desert horse, from the upper Miocene strata, shows the three toes still present. But the Pliocene rocks contain fossils showing gradual reduction of the two side toes, modification of the teeth, and increase in size of the skeleton.
ProtohippusandPliohippus, the one-toed species from the Pliocene strata, illustrate these changes. They were about the size of small ponies.
Equus, the modern horse, was represented in the Pliocene strata by a species, now extinct, calledEquus Scotti. This we may regard as the true wild horse of America, for it was as large as the domesticated horse, and much like it, though more like a zebra in some respects. No one can tell whythese animals, once abundant in this country, became extinct at the end of the Tertiary Period. But this is undoubtedly true.
The types described form a series showing how the ancestors of the modern horse, grazing on the marshy borders of ancient ponds, lived and died, generation after generation, through a period covering thousands, possibly millions, of years. Along the sides of the crumbling buttes these ancient burying-grounds are being uncovered. Within a dozen years several expeditions, fitted out by the American Museum of Natural History, have searched the out-cropping strata in Dakota and Wyoming for bones of mammals known to have lived at the time the strata were forming in the muddy shallows along the margins of lake and marsh. Duplicate skeletons of the primitive horse types above have been found, and vast numbers of their scattered bones. Each summer geological excursions will add to the wealth of fossils of this family collected in museums.
The Tertiary rocks in Europe yield the same kind of secrets. The region of Paris overlies the estuary of an ancient river. When the strata are laid bare by the digging of foundations for buildings, bones are found in abundance. Cuvier was a famous French geologist who made extensive studies of the remains of the prehistoric animals found in this old burial-place called by scientists the Paris basin. He believed that the dead bodies floated down-streamand accumulated in the mud of the delta, where the tide checked the river's current.
Skeletons of the Hipparion, a graceful, three-toed horse, were found in numbers in the strata of the Miocene time. This animal lived in Europe while the Pliohippus and the Protohippus were flourishing in America.
A great number of species of tapir-like animals left their bones in the Paris basin, among them a three-hoofed animal which may have been the connecting link between the horse and the tapir families. Cuvier found the connecting link between tapirs and cud-chewing mammals.
The hairy, woolly mammoth was one of the giant mammals that withstood the cold of the great ice flood, when the less hardy kinds were cut off by the changing climate of the northern half of Europe and America. In caves where the wild animals took refuge from their enemies, skeletons of men have been found with those of the beasts. With these chance skeletons have been found rude, chipped stone spear-heads, hammers, and other tools. With these the savage ancestors of our race defended themselves, and preyed on such animals as they could use for food. They hunted the clumsy mammoth successfully, and shared the caverns in the rocks with animals like the hyena, the sabre-toothed tiger, and the cave bear, which made these places their homes. In California a human skull was found in the bed of an ancient river, which was buried by a lava flow from craters long ago extinct. With this buried skull a few well-shaped but rough stone tools were found. This man must have lived when the great ice flood was at its height.
In southern France, caves have been opened that contained bones and implements of men who evidently lived by fishing and hunting. Bone fish-hooksshowed skill in carving with the sharp edges of flint flakes. A spirited drawing of a mammoth, made on a flat, stone surface, is a proof that savage instincts were less prominent in these cave men than in those who fought the great reindeer and the mammoth farther north.
In later times men of higher intelligence formed tribes, tamed the wild horse, the ox, and the sheep, and made friends with the dog. Great heaps of shells along the shores show where the tribes assembled at certain times to feast on oysters and clams. Bones of animals used as food, and tools, are found in these heaps, called "kitchen-middens." These are especially numerous in Northern Europe. The stone implements used by these tribes were smoothly polished. A higher intelligence expressed itself also by the making of utensils out of clay. This pottery has been found in shell heaps. So the rude cave man, who was scarcely less a wild beast than the animals which competed with him for a living and a shelter from storms and cold, was succeeded by a higher man who brought the brutes into subjection by force of will and not by physical strength.
The lake-dwellers, men of the Bronze Age, built houses on piles in the lakes of Central Europe. About sixty years ago the water was low, and these relics of a vanished race were first discovered. The lake bottoms were scraped for further evidences of their life. Tools of polished stone and of bronze were taken up in considerable numbers. Stored grainsand dried fruits of several kinds were found. Ornamental trinkets, weapons of hunters and warriors, and agricultural tools tell how the people lived. Their houses were probably built over the water as a means of safety from attack of beasts or hostile men.
In our country the mound-builders have left the story of their manners of life in the spacious, many-roomed tribal houses, built underground, and left with a great variety of relics to the explorers of modern times. These people worked the copper mines, and hammered and polished lumps of pure metal into implements for many uses. With these are tools of polished stone. Stores of corn were found in many mounds scattered in the Mississippi Valley.
The cliff-dwellers of the mesas of Arizona and New Mexico had habits like those of the mound-builders, and the Aztecs, a vanished race in the Southwest, at whose wealth and high civilization the invading Spaniards under Cortez marvelled. The plastered stone houses of the cliff-dwelling Indians had many stories and rooms, each built to house a tribe, not merely a family.
The Pueblo, the Moqui, and the Zuni Indians build similar dwellings to-day, isolated on the tops of almost inaccessible mesas.
Millions of years have passed since life appeared on the earth. Gradually higher forms have followed lower ones in the sea and on the land. Butnot all of the lower forms have gone. All grades of plants and animals still flourish, but the dominant class in each age is more highly organized than the class that ruled the preceding age.
To discover the earth's treasure, and to turn it to use; to tame wild animals and wild plants, and make them serve him; to create ever more beautiful and more useful forms in domestication; to find out the earth's life story, by reading the pages of the great stone book—these are undertakings that waited for man's coming.
The best family hobby we have ever had is the stars. We have a star club with no dues to pay, no officers to boss us, and only three rules:
1. We shall have nothing but "fun" in this club—no hard work. Therefore no mathematics for us!
2. We can't afford a telescope. Therefore we must be satisfied with what bright eyes can see.
3. No second-hand wonders for us! We want to see the things ourselves, instead of depending on books.
You can't imagine what pleasure we have had in one short year! The baby, of course, was too young to learn anything, and besides he was in bed long before the stars came out. But Ruth, our seven-year-old, knows ten of the fifteen brightest stars; and she can pick out twelve of the most beautiful groups or constellations. We grown-ups know all of the brightest stars, and all forty-eight of the most famous constellations. And the whole time we have given to it would not exceed ten minutes a day!
And the best part is thewaywe know the stars. The sky is no longer bewildering to us. The stars are not cold, strange, mysterious. They are friends.We know their faces just as easily as you know your playmates. For instance, we know Sirius, because he is the brightest. We know Castor and Pollux, because they are twins. We know Regulus, because he is in the handle of the Sickle. And some we know by their colours. They are just as different as President Taft, "Ty" Cobb, Horace Fletcher and Maude Adams. And quite as interesting!
What's more, none of us can ever get lost again. No matter what strange woods or city we go to, we never get "turned around." Or if we do, we quickly find the right way by means of the sun or the stars.
Then, too, our star club gives us all a little exercise when we need it most. Winter is the time when we all work hardest and have the fewest outdoor games. Winter is also the best time for young children to enjoy the stars, because it gets dark earlier in winter—by five o'clock, or long before children go to bed. It is pleasant to go out doors for half an hour before supper and learn one new star or constellation.
Again, it is always entertaining because every night you find the old friends in new places. No two nights are just the same. The changes of the moon make a great difference. Some nights you enjoy the moonlight; other nights you wish there were no moon, because it keeps you from spying out some new star. We have a little magazine that tells us all the news of the stars and the planets and the cometsbeforethe things happen! We pay a dollar a yearfor it. It is called theMonthly Evening Sky Map.
When we first became enthusiastic about stars, the father of our family said: "Well, I think our Star Club will last about two years. I judge it will cost us about two dollars and we shall get about twenty dollars worth of fun out of it." But in all three respects father was mistaken.
Part of the two dollars father spoke of went for a book called "The Friendly Stars," and seventy-five cents we spent for the most entertaining thing our family ever bought—a planisphere. This is a device which enables us to tell just where any star is, at any time, day or night, the whole year. It has a disc which revolves. All we have to do is to move it until the month and the day come right opposite the very hour we are looking at it, and then we can tell in a moment which stars can be seen at that time. Then we go down the street where there is a good electric light at the corner and we hold our planisphere up, almost straight overhead. The light shines through, so that we can read it, and it is just as if we had a map of the heavens. We can pick out all the interesting constellations and name them just as easily as we could find the Great Lakes or Rocky Mountains in our geography.
We became so eager not to miss any good thing that father got another book. Every birthday in our family brought a new star book, until now we have about a dozen—all of them interesting and not oneof them having mathematics that children cannot understand. So I think we have spent on stars fifteen dollars more than we needed to spend (but I'm glad we did it), and I think we have had about two hundred dollars worth of fun! Yes, when I think what young people spend on ball games, fishing, tennis, skating, and all the other things that children love, I am sure our family has had about two hundred dollars worth of fun out of stars. And there is more to come!
You would laugh to know why I enjoy stars so much. I have always studied birds and flowers and trees and rocks and shells so much that I was afraid to get interested in stars. I thought it wouldn't rest me. But it's a totally different kind of science from any I ever studied! There are no families, genera, and species among the stars, thank Heaven! That's one reason they refresh me. Another is that no one can press them and put them in a herbarium, or shoot them and put them in a museum. And another thing about them that brings balm to my spirit is that no human being can destroy their beauty. No one can "sub-divide" Capella and fill it with tenements. No one can use Vega for a bill-board. Ah, well! we must not be disturbed if every member of our family has a different point of view toward the stars; we can all enjoy and love them in our own ways.
How would you like to start a Star Club like ours? You ought to be able to persuade your family toform one, because it need not cost a cent. Perhaps this book will interest them all, but the better way is for you to read about one constellation and then go out with some of the family and find it. This book does not tell about wonderful things you can never see; it tells about the wonderful things all of us can see.
I wish you success with your Star Club. Perhaps your uncles and aunts will start clubs, too. We have three Star Clubs in our family—one in New York, one in Michigan, and one in Colorado. Last winter the "Colorado Star Gazers" sent this challenge to the "New Jersey Night-Owls:" "We bet you can't see Venus by daylight!"
That seemed possible, because during that week the "evening star" was by far the brightest object in the sky. But father and daughter searched the sky before sunset in vain, and finally we had to ask the "Moonstruck Michiganders" how to see Venus while the sun was shining. Back came these directions on a postal-card: "Wait until it is dark and any one can see Venus. Then find some tree, or other object, which is in line with Venus and over which you can just see her. Put a stake where you stand. Next day go there half an hour before sunset, and stand a little to the west. You will see Venus as big as life. The next afternoon you can find her by four o'clock. And if you keep on you will see her day before yesterday!"
That was a great "stunt." We did it; and thereare dozens like it you can do. And that reminds me that father was mistaken about our interest lasting only two years. We know that it will not die till we do. For, even if we never get a telescope, there will always be new things to see. Our club has still to catch Algol, the "demon's eye," which goes out and gleams forth every three days, because it is obscured by some dark planet we can never see. And we have never yet seen Mira the wonderful, which for some mysterious reason dies down to ninth magnitude and then blazes up to second magnitude every eleventh month.
Ah, yes, the wonders and the beauties of astronomy ever deepen and widen. Better make friends with the stars now. For when you are old there are no friends like old friends.
I never heard of any boy or girl who didn't know the Big Dipper. But there is one very pleasant thing about the Dipper which children never seem to know. With the aid of these seven magnificent stars you can find all the other interesting stars and constellations. So true is this that a book has been written called "The Stars through a Dipper."
To illustrate, do you know thePointers? I mean the two stars on the front side of the Dipper. They point almost directly toward the Pole star, or North star, the correct name of which is Polaris. Most children can see the Pole star at once because it is the only bright star in that part of the heavens.
But if you can't be sure you see the right one, a funny thing happens. Your friend will try to show you by pointing, but even if you look straight along his arm you can't always be sure. And then, if he tries to tell you how far one star is from another, he will try to show you by holding his arms apart. But that fails also. And so, we all soon learn the easiest and surest way to point out stars and measure distances.
The easiest way to tell any one how to find a staris to get three stars in a straight line, or else at right angles.
The surest way to tell any one how far one star is from another is by "degrees." You know what degrees are, because every circle is divided into 360 of them. And if you will think a moment, you will understand why we can see only half the sky at any one time, or 180 degrees, because the other half of the sky is on the other side of the earth. Therefore, if you draw a straight line from one horizon, clear up to the top of the sky and down to the opposite horizon, it is 180 degrees long. And, of course, it is only half that distance, or 90 degrees, from horizon to zenith. (Horizon is the point where earth and sky seem to meet, and zenith is the point straight over your head.)
Now ninety degrees is a mighty big distance in the sky. The Pole star is nothing like ninety degrees from the Dipper. It is only twenty-five degrees, or about five times the distance between the Pointers. And now comes the only thing I will ask you to remember. Look well at the two Pointers, because the distance between them, five degrees, is the most convenient "foot rule" for the sky that you will ever find. Most of the stars you will want to talk about are from two to five times that distance from some other star that you and your friends are sure of. Perhaps this is a little hard to understand. If so, read it over several times, or get some one to explain it to you, for when you grasp it, it will unlock almostas many pleasures as a key to the store you like the best.
Now, let's try our new-found ruler. Let us see if it will help us find the eighth star in the Dipper. That's a famous test of sharp eyes. I don't want to spoil your pleasure by telling you too soon where it is. Perhaps you would rather see how sharp your eyes are before reading any further. But if you can't find the eighth star, I will tell you where to look.
Look at the second star in the Dipper, counting from the end of the handle. That is a famous star called Mizar. Now look all around Mizar, and then, if you can't see a little one near it, try to measure off one degree. To do this, look at the Pointers and try to measure off about a fifth of the distance between them. Then look about one degree (or less) from Mizar, and I am sure you will see the little beauty—its name is Alcor, which means "the cavalier" or companion. The two are sometimes called "the horse and rider"; another name for Alcor is Saidak, which means "the test." I shall be very much disappointed if you cannot see Saidak, because it is not considered a hard test nowadays for sharp eyes.
Aren't these interesting names? Mizar, Alcor, Saidak. They sound so Arabian, and remind one of the "Arabian Nights." At first, some of them will seem hard, but you will come to love these old names. I dare say many of these star names are 4,000 years old. Shepherds and sailors werethe first astronomers. The sailors had to steer by the stars, and the shepherds could lie on the ground and enjoy them without having to twist their necks. They saw and named Alcor, thousands of years before telescopes were invented, and long before there were any books to help them. They saw the demon star, too, which I have never seen. It needs patience to see those things; sharp eyes are nothing to be proud of, because they are given to us. But patience is something to be eager about, because it costs us a lot of trouble to get it.
Let's try for it. We've had a test of sight. Now let's have a test of patience. It takes more patience than sharpness of sight to trace the outline of the Little Dipper. It has seven stars, too, and the Pole star is in the end of the handle. Do you see two rather bright stars about twenty-five degrees from the Pole? I hope so, for they are the only brightish stars anywhere near Polaris. Well, those two stars are in the outer rim of the Little Dipper. Now, I think you can trace it all; but to make sure you see the real thing, I will tell you the last secret. The handle of the Big Dipper is bentback; the handle of the Little Dipper is bentin.
Now, if you have done all this faithfully, you have worked hard enough, and I will reward you with a story. Once upon a time there was a princess named Callisto, and the great god Jupiter fell in love with her. Naturally, Jupiter's wife, Juno, wasn't pleased, so she changed the princess into a bear. But beforethis happened, Callisto became the mother of a little boy named Arcas, who grew up to be a mighty hunter. One day he saw a bear and he was going to kill it, not knowing that the bear was really his own mother. Luckily Jupiter interfered and saved their lives. He changed Arcas into a bear and put both bears into the sky. Callisto is the Big Bear, and Arcas is the Little Bear. But Juno was angry at that, and so she went to the wife of the Ocean and said, "Please, never let these bears come to your home." So the wife of the Ocean said, "I will never let them sink beneath the waves." And that is why the Big and the Little Dipper never set. They always whirl around the Pole star. And that is why you can always see them, though some nights you would have to sit up very late.
Is that a true story? No. But, I can tell you a true one that is even more wonderful. Once upon a time, before the bear story was invented and before people had tin dippers, they used to think of the Little Dipper as a little dog. And so they gave a funny name to the Pole star. They called it Cynosura, which means "the dog's tail." We sometimes say of a great man, "he was the cynosure of all eyes," meaning that everybody looked at him. But the original cynosure was and is the Pole star, because all the stars in the sky seem to revolve around it. The two Dippers chase round it once every twenty-four hours, as you can convince yourself some night when you stay up late. So that's all for to-night.
What! You want another true story? Well, just one more. Once upon a time the Big Dipper was a perfect cross. That was about 50,000 years ago. Fifty thousand years from now the Big Dipper will look like a steamer chair. How do I know that? Because, the two stars at opposite ends of the Dipper are going in a direction different from the other five stars. How do I know that? Why, I don't know it. I just believe it. There are lots of things I don't know, and I'm not afraid to say so. I hope you will learn how to say "I don't know." It's infinitely better than guessing; it saves trouble, and people like you better, because they see you are honest. I don't know how the stars in the Big Dipper are moving, but the men who look through telescopes and study mathematics say the end stars do move in a direction opposite to the others, and they say the Dippermusthave looked like a cross, and will look like a dipper long, long after we are dead. And I believe them.
There are forty-eight well known constellations, but of these only about a dozen are easy to know. I think a dozen is quite enough for children to learn. And therefore, I shall tell you how to find only the showiest and most interesting.
The best way to begin is to describe the ones that you can see almost every night in the year, because you may want to begin any month in the year, and you might be discouraged if I talked about things nobody could see in that month. There are five constellations you can nearly always see, and these are all near the Pole star.
Doubtless you think you know two of them already—the Big and the Little Dipper. Ah, I forgot to tell you that these dippers are not the real thing. They are merely parts of bigger constellations and their real names are Great Bear and Little Bear. The oldest names are the right ones. Thousands of years ago, when the Greeks named these groups of stars, they thought they looked like two bears. I can't see the resemblance.
But for that matter all the figures in the sky are disappointing. The people who named the constellations called them lions, and fishes, and horses, andhunters, and they thought they could see a dolphin, a snake, a dragon, a crow, a crab, a bull, a ram, a swan, and other things. But nowadays we cannot see those creatures. We can see the stars plainly enough, and they do make groups, but they do not look like animals. I was greatly disappointed when I was told this; but I soon got over it, because new wonders are always coming on. I think the only honest thing to do is to tell you right at the start that you cannot see these creatures very well. You will spoil your pleasure unless you take these resemblances good-naturedly and with a light heart. And you will also spoil your pleasure if you scold the ancients for naming the constellations badly. Nobody in the world would change those old names now. There is too much pleasure in them. Besides, I doubt if we could do much better. I believe those old folks were better observers than we. And I believe they had a lighter fancy.
Let us, too, be fanciful for once. I have asked my friend, Mrs. Thomas, to draw her notion of some of these famous creatures of the sky. You can draw your idea of them too, and it is pleasant to compare drawings with friends. There is only one way to see anything like a Great Bear. You have to imagine the Dipper upside down and make the handle of the Dipper serve for the Bear's tail. What a funny bear to drag a long tail on the ground! Miss Martin says he looks more like a chubby hobby-horse. You will have to make the bowl of the Dipper into hind legs and use all the other stars, somehow, to make a big, clumsy, four-legged animal. And what a monster he is! He measures twenty-five degrees from the tip of his nose to the root of his tail. Yes, all those miscellaneous faint stars you see near the Big Dipper belong to the Great Bear.