 the planet Jupiter, with a beam from it.(13) However, one professional astronomer did report something. Prof. Swift, at Rochester, N.Y., saw, nights of Sept. 11 and 13, and object that was supposed by him to be a comet, but if so, it was not seen again (Observatory, 6-343).(14)
There was a beam of light from this object: so it was thought to be a comet. See coming data upon beams of light that have associated with new stars.
The first observation upon a new light in the sky was two nights after the explosion of Krakatoa. It may have been shining, conspicuous but unseen, at the time of the eruption.
The matter of the supposed velocity of light, or the hustle of visibility, comes up in the mind of a conventionalist. But, if in the past, scientists have determined the velocity of light to be whatever suited their theories, I feel free for any view that I consider suitable. Look it up, and find that once upon a time the alleged velocity of light agreed with supposed distances in this supposed solar system, and that when changed theories required changes in these distances, the velocity of light was cut down to agree with the new supposed distances. In the kindergarten of science, the more or less intellectual infants who have made these experiments have prattled anything that the child-like astronomers have wanted them to prattle. A conventionalist would say that, even if there were a new star, at a time of terrestrial catastrophe, light of it would not have been seen upon this earth, until years later. My expression is that so close to this earth are the stars that when a new star appears, or erupts, effects of it are observable upon this earth, and that, whether because of closeness, or because there is no velocity of [339/340] light, it is seen immediately -- or is seeable immediately -- if amateurs happen to be looking.
Upon the night of August 6th, 1885, while all the professional astronomers of this earth were attending to whatever may be professional astronomical duties, a clergyman made an astronomical discovery. The Rev. S.H. Saxby looked up at a new star, in the nebula of Andromeda, and he saw it.
There is much uppishness to anybody who says, or announces, that of all cults his cult is the aristocrat. But most of his upward looking is likely to be at the supposed altitude of himself. All over this earth, professional astronomers were looking up at themselves. In England and Ireland, three amateurs, besides the Rev. S.H. Saxby, being probably of only ordinary conceit, looking up beyond themselves, and saw the new star. For the records, see the English Mechanic, of this period.(15) Whatever the professional astronomers of the United States were looking up at, they saw nothing new. But somebody, in the U.S.A., did see the new star. Sidereal Messenger, 4-246 -- an amateur in Red Wing, Minnesota.(16) It was not until August 31st that upness in an Observatory related to the stars. Finally a professional astronomer either looked up, or woke up; or waking up, looked up; or looking up, woke up.
The whole nebula of Andromeda shone with the light of the new star. Several observers thought that the newly illuminated nebula was a comet (Observatory, 83-30).(17) From the light of the new star the whole formation lighted up, like a little West Indian island, at a time of an eruption in it. According to conventionalists, this nebula is 60 x 60 x 24 x 365 x 8 x 186,000 miles in diameter, and light from a new star, central in it, would occupy four years in traversing the whole. But as if because this nebula may not be so much as 60 x 186,000 inches in diameter, no appre- [340/341] ciable time was occupied, and the whole formation lighted up at once.(18)
Other indications -- whatever we think we mean by "indications" -- that the nebula of Andromeda is close to this earth:
Sweden -- and it was reported that wild fowl began to migrate, at the earliest date (Aug. 16th) ever recorded in Sweden --
Flap of a duck's wings -- and the twinkles of a star -- the star and the bird stammered a little story that may some day be vibrated by motors