Page:Melbourne and Mars.djvu/105

Rh jumped back in affright, his eyes staring widely and his hair actually bristling. "Oh! oh!!" he cried, "a great orb is falling upon us." He seized Emma and started to run away, as if that could do any good. The junior astronomer caught him and bid him look again. There all was us before, the red and blue stars scintillating in the silent heavens.

"What was it?" asked Harry. "It was our nearest moon. It is so near that it always appears as if falling upon the larger telescopes."

We teased Harry for many a day for his attempt to run away with Emma. As for his start, that was pardonable.

R. MARK HALEY and his junior had now gone to the great reflector. For a short time the earth would he in a favorable position for observation. When nearest to Mars it is out of sight, and has its dark side turned that way. From the earth Mars is then a full face study, and sometimes only forty millions of miles distant. Seen from Mars, however, the Earth is only full when its greatest distance. This night the Earth was half full, and Australia would emerge into the sunlight about one o'clock, Martial time. The great reflector, and all connected with it, are moved back by clockwork just as fast as Mars moves forward on its axis, so that the Earth, now in the field of vision, shall remain fixed there, presenting only such changes as result from its own motion. All the party had a peep at the illuminated half of the Earth, which in the mighty speculum appeared as half a sphere of twenty inches in diameter. Several now left; Harry Grayson, his son, and Charley and Helen remained. Two sat at our side, three at the other, the great pit of the instrument separating them.

The sun shone brightly over the North and South Pacific; North America was wrapped in fogs and clouds. It was summer in the Southern Seas. A little speck came into sight and was instantly identified as New Caledonia; two larger ones further south were known as New Zealand. A few minutes more and the Queensland coast of the Australian Continent merges into the sunlight. Running the eye south over its broken and indented edge Helen and Charley simultaneously saw Port Jackson.

"Our first home was there, Helen," said Charley, with emotion.

"True, we spent many happy years there," replied Helen. "How much more pleasant life might have been if we had not followed the gold and tried to become rich."