He had always
stuck to the hope of this, and on his very last tests of
the Flies he had said they, were almost up to it. But
for this accuracy of his, I can hardly suppose we should
have found her to this hour, since she had failed, by
what cause I then did not know, to take her intended
place on the meridian of No. 9. At five thousand miles
the MOON appeared as large as the largest satellite of
Jupiter appears. And Polly was right in that first
observation, when she said she got a good disk with that
admirable glass of Mrs. Bowdoin.
The orbit was not on the meridian of No. 9, nor did
it remain on any meridian. But it was very nearly South
and North,--an enormous motion in declination with a very
slight RETROGRADE motion in Right Ascension. At five
thousand miles the MOON showed as large as a circle two
miles and a third in diameter would have shown on old
Thornbush, as we always called her older sister. We
longed for an eclipse of Thornbush by B. M., but no such
lucky chance is on the cards in any place accessible to
us for many years. Of course, with a MOON so near us the
terrestrial parallax is enormous.
Now, you know, dear reader, that the gigantic
reflector of Lord Rosse, and the exquisite fifteen-
inch refractors of the modern observatories, eliminate
from the chaotic rubbish-heap of the surface of old
Thornbush much smaller objects than such a circle as I
have named.
Pages:
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78