New Lands | Page 7

must there be to all lesser reputes and achievements?
Let three bodies inter-act. There is no calculus by which their inter-actions can be formulated. But there are a thousand inter-acting bodies in this solar system--or supposed solar system--and we find that the higher prestige in our existence is built upon the tangled assertions that there are magicians who can compute in a thousand quantities, though they cannot compute in three.
Then all other so-called human triumphs, or moderate successes, products of anybody's reasoning processes and labors--and what are they, if higher than them all, more academic, austere, rigorous, exact are the methods and the processes of the astronomers? What can be thought of our whole existence, its nature and its destiny?
That our existence, a thing within one solar system, or supposed solar system, is a stricken thing that is mewling through space, shocking able-minded, healthy systems with the sores on its sun, its ghastly moons, its civilizations that are all broken out with sciences; a celestial leper, holding out doddering expanses into which charitable systems drop golden comets? If it be the leprous thing that our findings seem to indicate, there is no encouragement for us to go on. We cannot discover: we can only betray new symptoms. If I be part of such a stricken thing, I know of nothing but sickness and sores and rags to reason with: my data will be pustules; my interpretations will be inflammations --

New Lands PART ONE CHAPTER THREE
SOUTHERN plantations and the woolly heads of negroes pounding the ground--cries in northern regions and round white faces turned to the sky--fiery globes in the sky--a study in black, white, and golden formations in one general glow. Upon the night of November 13-14, 1833, occurred the most sensational celestial spectacle of the nineteenth century: for six hours fiery meteors gushed from the heavens, and were visible along the whole Atlantic coast of the United States.
One supposes that astronomers do not pound the ground with their heads, and presumably they do not screech, but they have feelings just the same. They itched. Here was something to formulate. When he hears of something new and unquestionable in the sky, an astronomer is diseased with ill-suppressed equations. Symbols persecute him for expression. His is the frenzy of someone who would stop automobiles, railroad trains, bicycles, all things, to measure them; run, with a yardstick, after sparrows, flies, all persons passing his door. This is supposed to be scientific, but it can be monomaniac. Very likely the distress and the necessity of Prof. Olmstead were keenest. He was the first to formulate. He "demonstrated" that these meteors, known as the Leonids, revolved around the sun once in six months.
They didn't.
Then Prof. Newton "demonstrated" that the "real" period was thirty-three and a quarter years. But this was done empirically, and that is not divine, nor even aristocratic, and the thing would have to be done rationally, or mathematically, by someone, because, if there be not mathematical treatment, in gravitational terms, of such phenomena, astronomers are in reduced circumstances. It was Dr. Adams, who, emboldened with his experience in not having to point anywhere near Neptune, but nevertheless being acclaimed by all patriotic Englishmen as the real discoverer of Neptune, mathematically "confirmed" Prof. Newton's "findings." Dr. Adams predicted that the Leonids would return in November, 1866, and in November, 1899, occupying several years, upon each occasion, in passing a point in this earth's orbit.
There were meteors upon the night of Nov. 13-14, 1866. They were plentiful. They often are in the middle of November. They no more resembled the spectacle of 1833 than an ordinary shower resembles a cloudburst. But the "demonstration" required that there should be an equal display, or, according to some aspects, a greater display, upon the corresponding night of the next year. There was a display, the next year; but it was in the sky of the United States, and was not seen in England. Another occurrence nothing like that of 1833 was reported from the United States.
By conventional theory, this earth was in a vast, wide stream of meteors, the earth revolving so as to expose successive parts to bombardment. So keenly did Richard Proctor visualize the earth so immersed and so bombarded, that, when nothing was seen in England, he explained. He spend most of his life explaining. In the Student, 2-254, he wrote: "Had the morning of Nov. 14, 1867 been clear in England, we should have seen the commencement of the display, but not its more brilliant part."
We have had some experience with the "triumphs" of astronomers: we have some suspicions as to their greatly advertised accuracy. We shall find out for ourselves whether the morning of Nov. 14, 1867 was clear enough in England or not. We suspect that it was a charming morning,