Evening Star Newspaper, March 31, 1900, Page 20

THE EVENING STAR, SATURDAY, MARCH 31, 1900—26 PAGES. JAPANESE AND CHINESE GIRL STUDENTS IN HAWAIT. ASIATICS IN HAWAII Japanese Are Rapidly Taking the Mace of the Chinese. + ——— CONTRACT LABOR YET IN EVIDENCE As Business Men the Celestials Are Highly Successful. FARMERS AND MERCHANTS Special Correspondence of The Evening Star. HONOLULU. March 1, 1000. e enforcement of the Chinese the same as on the inamen are now be- after an- landed 4 plantation, e action of the of the t the sit an amp imported 1 lz for the | term lease he accepts a short one. He tak possession, and in a few months what w: a weedy pond with a few straggling she of taro here and there becomes a regularly laid out, thrifty ‘ooking garden, or pe } Raps the tract will be converted into a ri field Sea tie beginning to .the end of h term the quiet celestial will be laying t foundation for a renewal of the lease, and the chances are a hundred to one he will obtain think the owner is “‘maital wa- ” (fair woman) and marry her, for the x @ women do not dislike Chinese hus- ands—they are good to them and let them have money and buy them fish, pol and gin enough to keep them fat and happy. The Japanese Newcomers. The Japanese have not been brought to the islands in large numbers until within the last few years. Now they make up by far the greater portion of the contract la- borers on the sugar plantations. There are a considerable number of Chinese employed by some of the planters, but the majority are what are termed “free ‘aborers’—that is, their contracts have expired and there is no imprisoning them if they refuse to work. ach nationality th; it ‘ong before the term is up. s housed separately and very building is numbered. .The he usually contain from two to five rooms, t by “n feet ea with an ave married | There to be u eight 1, one ngle men to each room. amily 1 is allowed one room. usually one kitchen te each hous: . The two na- tionalitie on account ef the differenc and Cook- } ing. however, rife may be en although, of cour: a small hos- central point erally “men will r - a serious work with- much. y great deal o mplishing usually consist ired men, in ch: e word for ove = under th r growe Wealthy many Chinese in Hawall. Ch mer- wea Ke ey or days ro for th t wets lorte over- Suspended from raise ducks on fish ice mullet are raised. Lensing and Marrying. seldom buy ground. They twenty or even fifty y dd yearly renta!, payable M. iS are owned ness is to secure t that will f e for the re- jer of their lives. There thing more truly characteristic oft Hawail than their deal- es in leasing and culti- vating their taro lands. A Chinaman will fee a piece of ground that a native woman is cultivating In a loose and unscetentific Way, possibly obtaining from it enough to furnish taro for herself and relatives. He will in some Way seeure the right to use a small piece of land adjoining hers, and then he will cu'tivate her friendship while he cultivates the soli. He will make some ac- ceptable presents to her; perhaps will give hera little money to buy gin with, and In ath- er inoffensive ways do all that he can to win her good will. Next, having found out who her native counse'lor is, he will retain him for $25, $0 or $100 and ask him to obtain & five. ten or twenty years’ lease of the woman's land. It does not take the native lawyer long to convince his client that it is manifestly to her interest to make the If the Chinaman cannot obtain a long- | Rothing match anything else. gives nis ate to thr nt with the luna 2 low by the k im out of the way w othe work should be The Hokopa System. m “hokopu,” freely trans. ish y zo home, the great 3 results ving the men. that, hough a working day is supposed to la: ight to st will have free mm ¢ a: of ng the Japanese Fishermen. that the Chin etle y morning skimmin; or lying 21 nd nabit ¢ thes= among whom be recognized as land. They stay, and, wi of the wh > destined to 1 itors in the evolution R. D. SILLIMAN. +e- icture Hanging. From Harper's Iazar, no one hangs pictures in pairs. © when regularity of arrangement onsidered the acme of elegance has nished. and in its place has come a wild truggle after the unexpected by those whose one idea of artistic effect is to have The weird result their efforts produce is due to their failure to appreciate the fact that harmony, at least. must rule, even although uniform- ity has been discarded. There must be a scheme to which the 1 tone of the pictures should con- A dark carbon must not hang close an etching drawn in delicate lines and by a broad white mat. If water colors. with their sof: tints, elbow oil paint- ings, with their bolder tones, the former will be faded. the latter coarsened, Let it be grasped. in the first place, that certain things may go together, ‘while others must be barred from the assoctation. Etchings, photographs, drawings, some en- gravings, water colors, pastels, may be as- sembled on friendly terms. ‘Even then, however, there must be judgment exercised in the way they are placed. Contrary to the natural inclination, dark, heavily shad- ed pictures should not always hang in the strongest light, but should in some cases seek a sheltered position, away from the glare of the windows. Near the light may hang the pictures in fainter tints, the sub- dued water colors, the line engravings, whose best points need Ulumination. This order may sometimes be reversed when the corner furthest from the window shows a decided need of brightening by lght pic- tures, but always the gradation of tints should be borne In mind. Just as in a well- planned Tcom the darkest calor is found in the carpet, and melts from that through the shades of the curtains and furniture to the lightest nuance in the wall, so the lower pictures should be more somber in hue than the upper, and should lead the eye upconscio' from the deepeat tone to the highest PHILIPPINE FORESTS Immense Quantities of Mahogany and Other Hardwoods. A VIS? 10 A MANILA SAWMILL Reasons for Believing That There is Gold in Abundance. POINTS FOR PROSPECTORS —— Copyrighted, 1900, by Frank G. Carpenter. Special Correspondence of The Evening Star. MAN:LA, February 14, 1900. Evi ed one of the biggest sawmills of the Philippines today. It is owned by a Chinese, and Chinese laborers were turning the great logs into boards. The Pasig river, on which the mill stands, was lined with legs Other sawmills above and below were busily working, and the scratch, serateh of the saw it eut through the hard wood could be everywhere heard. Each sawmill had scores »f men employed, and the scenes in all of them were far diferent from any- thing you will find in the United States. In the first place, the logs had been barked in the ferests, some having been straightened by chipping. All were of the he t of hardwood, and all had a grain and color which would ve made them exceedingly valuable could they have been sold in our country. The most wonderful thing about the mill was its absolute lack of machinery. It was an immense building covering almest an acre, and consisting of merely a roof and the poles which upheld It. The floor Ww the earth and there were no walls at the sides, The logs Were placed upon trestles about as high up from the ground as your waist, and at ch jog four half naked Chinese were sawing away. With a pencil they marked off the width of a board from the top of the log and then at each end beg: to pull crosscut saw: The log tay horizontally on the trestles, and the han- @es of the saws were so arranged at right angles with the blades that by pulling them back and forth the men could saw a_strip of board off the log. The two pair of men were sawing toward.each other, beginning at the ennosite ends of the log and care- fully hing the lines till they met in the center. They then made a second mark nd went on to saw off the next board. Such work renuires careful watching to light, and a long time to cut a sin- ard, but it is in this way that all the ~ used in this city of 250,000 people is made. The planing is also done by hand nd ull classes of wood making opel at Hardwoods of the Philippines. When I was told in the United S| that there were in the Philippines rosew s nine feet meter, and that the ties of the Manila-Dagupan railroad were made of mahogany. T was inclined to doubt the ements. Now that Iam on the ground ubt them no longer. » is enough hogany here to furni for at: nd the ties that a nine- road across the contine: ef hardwood are so numero vuld not surprise me y with an army. officer traveled. extensively in the m: he of the West Indies and " 1, and who has just return- a frem a march ch the woods northern Luzon. the mahoga trees there surpass in size the trees of Santo Domingo. co and Honduras. 1 hear similar stories of the eastern prov- and also of those which face the Pa- All this ss timbe: uthern istands. the od Island of Luzon, than many of the There dred vari h to be more than three hun- s of hardwood at least v have s T have seen man: but know the nam Yesterday T visited a plano here the instruments are made fr round up. The metal is st. the sounl- rs wed out and the polished cases hed. The r t pirne of whi nd tin as in the i States, 4 es nett used. dian w stand e climate. sounding bosr damp, meist air heir resonance nd within a fe months the best inst There vi here wh mate, h this will ev: me me tinny. s the ¢li- r thinks al instru- wh ually be used all damp rez vas. Floors of Mahogany. Nearly all of the floors of the best hou of Manila tare of narra, a wood much like mahogany. It has the same grain and ta a beautiful » Oriente Hotel, where i A great building of thre h wide stairaces and imme: ors are made of these Fi boards, each of wh eighteen inches to tw et in w from fifteen to twenty feet long. TI eof th rich material, and the r 1 to that of a pian f hardwood, with great hard- r them. and such of the thraitare as is not imported is of the same material. There a nme an churches here which have co floors and ceilings of mahogan that this same wood forms most timbers in the barges and boats of the Pasig river, boats a hundred and more fret long being made of it. The churches are floored with it, and it is. In fact, as pine in the United States as vever, only one of the are others of different ome woods take a polish like the Wey but bird's ffee hue h: grain and a m: others are af others red and others much like black walnut. Some of the woods are hard like teak and some are so hi t avy In the Island of Min- miles from here, it Is said there are 106 different varieties of woads, of which fifty are hard, many being fitted for shipbuilding and fine furniture making. will not fic alone, thir the dore Ant« Which Eat Wood. There are several varieties of wood here which the white ants will not eat. These a the only kinds that are of much value for furniture or building In the Philippines. The white ants ar> little Insects about as large as our common ant. They feed upon wood, and they will eat up a trunk or store box Ina night. They make a little hole in the wood and then go on eating away until it ts nothing but 2 shell. Last week among the goods which arrived on one of th: transports were a dozen rolling pins for making bread. When the box which con- tained them was opened only a pile of white dust and two pins were discovered. When th» pins were picked up one of them broke in two and the other dropped into pieces, The white ants had liked the flavor of the wood and eaten them. These ants sometimes attack warehouses when they are not made of hard woods, and a slight earthquake shock brings the buildings to the ground. They are fond ap- parently of mucilage and paste, for they have eaten the labels off the bottles in the hospital dispensaries and attacked the corks. Not long ago one of our surgeons upon opening a box of bottles containing alcohol found that the bottles were only half full. He suspected that the box had been tampered with until it was found that the ants had honeycombed the corks and that the liquor had evaporated. There was not a sign on the outside of the box to show {it had been touched. The ants had made a very small hole and crept through one at a time. They usually do their work on the inside of the wood, leay- ing the surface untouched. They may eat the legs of a chair, leaving little more than the paint. so that when you sit down you find the legs go to dust and yourself on the floor. They will eat clothing and paste- board cartridge wrappings, and it is even said they sometimes scratch tron, It may be for this reason that in building and oo the hardwoods only are used ere. re Pine mm the Philippines. I have seen it often stated that there ts no ping in the Philippines. Capt. Batch- eler, who has lately returned from a march of about three hundred miles through the Cagayan valley and the mountains along it, tells me this is not so. The captain is a North Carolina man, and he knows a pin tree when he sees one. Ho says he marched for days through pine forests, using pine knots to make torches for his men when they camped at night. He tells me the trees are larges andtas full of resin as the turpentine pine, treesiof the south Atlantic coast. st g There is also a soft celar wood here like that we use fon cigar boxes. It fs cut from logs from thirty to forty feet long and al- most a yord square. Another wood is calle bullet wood, becausejit fs as hard as a bul- let; it is so hard that it can be driven right through ordinary wood, and for this reason it sometimes takes the piace of nails. It is largely employed in the inakinz of roats at Manila and also inhouse building. Then there are the Sapan woods, which wien cut into pieces and: boiled furnish a bright red dye; the Acle wood, whien will resist fire a Jong time, and the Aranza. which furnishes logs two feet square: ind seventy-five feet long. This wood will wit ind the attacks of the sea worms, and is therefore valuable for wharves, piles »nd ship building. In addition to these; there are many other varieties of timber which might be sold at a profit the United States. One of the marked characteristics of the forests is their many large trees, trees which fur- nish logs from fifty to seventy-five feet in length and from two feet and upward in thickness. I have seen mahogany tables six feet wide and twelve feet in length, th: tops being made of one board, and have walked over great teak wood logs In cross- ing a canal on a stream. I have asked several people why these forests have not been exploited by the Spaniards, and have been told that one ri om was that the Spanish government cted a specia¥ permission to cut tim and another was the heavy taxes which were imposed. The question of gctting la- to cut the trees and haul the logs ou been a serious one, and one which ires considerable cxpital. The labor sed has been almost entirely Filipino labor, which is very uncertain. The men will op work on the slightest pretext, and it only by getting them into a sort of debt or peonage that steady work can ured. There are but few roads an! no railroads. The only beasis of value ari the water buffaloes, which are the freizhi ars and Jumber haulers of the Islands. Much of the timb new that Uncle lies near the sea, and am has the islands m ures will probably be underiaken to get it out. Lam told that the best of the for- ests are in the southern islands, and that # great part of Mindanao is one ¥: made up of valuable virgin fore: Gold in the Philippines. There is no doubt that gold exists all over the Philippines, but whether it is in paying quantities remains for the prospector to settle. I have reports every day of the existence of small placer deposits and of streams the beds of which when washed show color. The most of the stories are from the troops who have been in the mountainous districts—distric which are inhabited chiefly by savages and some of which have not been accessible to the ordinary pros- woods tree pector. The Filipino, it must be remembered, i traveler. He sticks to his home and seldom goes five miles be- yond it. The head-hunting natives have to some extent kept the Spaniards out of the is to mount; so that the large extent unexplored. A few weeks ago General G regiments across the mount of Luzon into the province of The men tell me their way was through the woods and across streams which bore good indications of ‘ying gold. At one lace Captain Pardie and some other offi- s washed a double handful of gravel in it found five flakes ef gold. In most the beds of the streams color-was found, but nowhere were there any signs of quartz About two hundred miles by sea north of nila 4 port called Vigan. There are country a oldiers there, and expeditions have n ntly made into the mountains at east. In this re 3 also to be seen in the hands Th wash it, it is said. ouf of the beds of creeks und trade the dust and little nugge Chine who give them about no ounes U have hgard it Chinese are able in PS exchange s ght, but this, ver for gold at the same w like many of the stortes told here, is prob- ably without foundatton. How the Savages Sell Gold. ft ts tmpossible for one to understand how sold could exist here®or hundreds of years with the country in the hands of the Span- jards without its being discovered and mined unless he knows the conditions which Prevail in most parts of the mountains They are wild and without roads of kind. Their onJy inhabitants are the Neg tos, Igorrotes, Gaddenes and other savages. The more peaceful parts of the islands have al had their thieves and brigands, so ining has been, to the least. ex- nely dangerous. Such gold as has been overed has also been kept secret for of robber: rom the “American pers of Manila, T give an extract from a report of a correspondent who has just re- ed from the Zimbales region. Said h saw a long rosary of gold in the hands of one of the natives. It was made un of nuggets of virgin gold, the smallest of which was as big as a pea. Holes had been pierced through the nuggets and they were strung on a silk cord. The gold was of a ight yellow color and had evidently come from the surface of the ground. Lt= owner ny one of the dally had purchased the nuggets of a .cegrito, but he could not learn where they had come from. if At this same time a rich Filipino of one of the towns near the foot of the moun- tains, finding t the soldiers did not intend to steal from hime pulled out a small buck. ski ack and showed about three ounces of gold, which he had rec ntly bought from the Negritos. This was coarse gold, most of the grains being about the size of a kernal of rice. The man said he under- stood that the Negritos picked the grains out of the clear mountain streams, and that they had no other methods of ™mining, nor did they seem to wish to engage in mining. Gold in Mindanao. Gen. Bates tells me he has heard reports of gold being found In the Island of Min- danao. This is the second rgest of the Philippine group, being almost as large as Kentucky. It Is practically unexplored, and {s Inhabited chiefly by savages. The chief washings are now on the northern part of the island, far away from the part occupied by our troops. The gold finds its way into the hands of the petty sultans and datos. who sell it to the foreigners. It is sald that the amount of alluvial gold which has been thus sold leads to t be quartz vein: T have not vi only belief that there must In Mindanao. ited the Island of Mindoro. few miles east of southern inhabited almost entirely by s. Its name Js a corruption of “mi or mine of gold. It is reported that sland has many placer deposi When ean Worcester visited it he was told by the natives t they could take him to a place where there was so much gold that it would dazzle his eyes, but he does not say that he accepted their offer. Valuable Mines. There are mines in Luzon which have produced considerable gold in the past. The Spanish government kept records of their mining operations, and for a long time a certain percentage of all the gold mined went to the King of Spain. According to the records, so I am told, the mines at Mambulo once produced weekly as much as 1,000 ounces. This, at the rate of $20 an ounce, would be $20,000 worth of gold per Week. These mines were worked by the Indians before the Spaniards came, and later on by the Spantards and by an En- glish syndicate. T understand the English could not get theenatives to co-operate with them and that their mining was for this reason unsuccessful. It is said, in fact, that none of the attemtps by foretgn- ers at mining in the Philippines have paid. Foreman. who ts one ‘of the best authori- tes, estimates that $1,300,000 have been spent in vain experiments of one kind and another, and that so far nothing hag been made. ‘That there is gold In many places, how- ever, there is no doubt. When the Span- lards first took ‘possession of the islands after the discovery by Ferdinand Magellan they sent home great quantities of ft in the shape of gold bracelets, chains and orna- ments. Two of thelr ‘ships were captured by Sir Francis Drake)’ and the booty was So great, it is said, that Drake fitted out his vessels with silken sails and silk Topes and thus sailed into London. How the Natives Mine. The mining now being done by the natives is of the rudest character. They use wooden bowls to wash the gold from the gtavel They pound the larger pieces of gold-bear- ing rock to pieces on anvils and then grind them to dust between millstones, the stones being pulled around by water buffaloes. In the few mines of Luzon the water is taken out by hand by the natives, who pass it up from one to another in buckets of palm leaves. Each bucket holds about two gal- lons, and it takes hundreds of natives to make the human chain which thus drains & mine. T hesitate to advise Americans to come lie! Luzon. out here to prospect. As far as present in- dications go it is all a gamble and the man who comes risks everything. The field may, however, soon develop into one of great possibilities. Just now nothing in the in- terior can be done from lack of roads and facilities for getting machinery into the mountains, There are some placer regions near the sea, but if there are quartz veins they are probably in the mountains some distance back from the coast. It would for the pres=nt, at least, be best for men to go in companies of a dozen or more, well arm- ed and ready to fight. In companies they will be abie to go almost anywhere, and can easily maintain themselves both against the Savages and the ladrones or Filipino ban- dws. They will find the climate of the mountains healthful and bracing, and the country in the winter at least a delightful one for traveling and prospecting. Other Minerals. Iam not yet prepared to write of the coal resources here. There are, I am told, large beds of coal on many of the Philippines, and that both anthracite and bituminous. The deposits exist chiefly on the islands which are nearest the east, but there are also evidences of coal near Zamboanga, in the far south. Capt. Batcheler saw many indications of copper and some evidences of petroleum in the Cagayan valle The Negritos and Igorrotes frequently show specimens of lead. antimony and other minerals. but it is impossible to get them to say where they find them. The lead usually carries gold and silver with it The copper of North Luzon was worked, it is said, by the Igorrotes long before the Spaniards came. ‘They softened the rocks by building tires upon them. This enabled them to break out the ore and they then roasted it again and again before smelting. Their smelting was done in little clay fur- Naces not much bigger than a four-gallon crock, bamboo blowers being used to make the requisite draught. The Spaniards later on tried to work these same mines with machinery and failed. The editor of the Manila Times, who has traveled considerably over Luzon, and who is the author of a number of guide books and maps relating to that island, tells me there is an iron mountain within less than fifty miles of Manila. It is near mine springs and not far from the best sett, t of the island. Iron is also said to ex- ist in other parts of Luzon and in Cebu and other islands. Some of the ores are very rich, those of Angat, in the Bulacan province, not far from Manila, containing from to 85 per cent of pure iron. None of the mines are worked and the incentive under the iniquitous Spanish government s been to let them lie undeveloped and untouched. FRANK G. CARPENTER. ee STORIES OF THE GOLD FIELDS. Some Gold Seekers on the Werge of Madnei From Ainslee’s Magazine. “Here is a typical illustration of the ex- treme hardshi of the life in Alaska. Mid- dleton was a young Englishman, slight and small and accustomed to all the refine- ments of civilized life. He had enough mon2y to buy a modest outfit, but had never camped out or roughed it before this time. He and his partner went in by the Chilcoot Pass in 1897 and tramped the whole way. They had a sledge and four Irish setters, with 1.200 pounds of freight. Th2 partner being the stronger, buckled himself into the harness and pulled as lead- er of the tea on’s dui walk behind and push. re no roac king, in Alask: pt in w sloughs of mud wor! et of the gold ih walker to the st. Canadian government has done nothing to better the condition of the trails, This fact, coupled with the exorbitant fees charged the miners by that government, hav» led the prospect- ors, at more than one point on the trails, to set up boards with this derisive motto illions for tribute, but not one cent for roads.” “The gold seeker him from doing anything refrains the trails nt me than will s+rve to help hii our of pr! difficulties and to carry him on his way. “The first important learned was to swear. Everybody swears in Alaska. There is belief that nothing of moment can be accomplished there without profanity, It is the safety valve that Keeps men from madness when the pressure of the conditions becomes excructa‘ing. Only Swedes do not acquire the habit. and 1 haps it would be better if they did. Their natural slowness of speech keeps thera quiet under trouble, but the feeling is there just the same. The stress of bittsr hard- ship fs on ail alike, and the effect is cumu- lative when it is not worked off. A story to illustrate the virtue of swearing con- cerns a Swele who had struggled throu a long half day of small disasters. His pa- thence was marvelous. He was wet and chilled. He righted his sledge after upseis n grim silence, and with a courage w of better luck, But along in the aftern: where the trail skirted a hill, some sudden freak twitched his ff to one side and seni the sledge load rolling down into the little valley beneath. It was noth- ing worse than had happened before, but semehow it snapped the last cord of hi resistance. He stood for a moment. } hands above his head and his featur. working as if ina convulston, then with a yell he dashed after the team, pulied an ax trom the lashings, killed the dogs one af- ter another, and ‘smashed the s load into little pieces. Suddenly turned. He sat down in the snow be: his ruined outfit and cried like a child. “To rejoin Middleton at the time of his learning to swear. The whole life goes on at such high pressure that everybody is « the verge of madness. It is the r the thing that counts. Middleton had his turn with the rest. Once, when slipping, he ved his footing by hanging to the sle: His partner feeli promptly cursed him for adding to the load. When dleton got down and pushed harder to e up for lost time, his pariner sulked and his head reeled with the added effort When one of the dogs dropped on the snow to rest, the sledge stopped and each man turned furiously on the other. The words came hot and fast. Middleton noticed all thing Middleton at once that he was not talking, but s ply screamin it and that he could not help ngs went away from him. ume to himself his partner’ round him, and his parin er as a woman's, was Then hen he rms were voic ten to him “There! there! Take a brace, In a minute you'll be all right’ “In ten minutes Middleton was all right, and they were both laughing and plodding as betore. It is this sort of thing that makes up the daily tragedy of the trails, Ten Health Commandments. The following ten rules are being quoted by English medical journa’ 1. Don’t leavs your rooms in the morning with an empty stomach. th 2. Never expose yourself to cold air im- mediately after you have partaken of a warm liquid of any kind. 3. Don’t leave your abode in cold weather without warm wraps around your shoulders and breast. 4. Begin respiration in the cold by breath- ing through the nose. This will give the air a chance to get warm before reaching the lungs. 5. Never place your back near a heated oven nor against a wall, warm or cold. 6. Don’t stand before an open window in @ railway carriage, nor take a drive in an open carriage, after violent physical exer- cise. 7. Don't remain motionless in a cold room, and do not stand in an open space, on Jee or snow. 8. Talk only when you must, for the old phrase, “Speech Is silver, silence is gold.” holds good even in hygiene. 9. Don’t put off your regular bath. When the skin is not kept fresh and soft the cold draws the pores together and you are ren- dered susceptible to pulmonary troubles of all kinds. 10. Don't retire with cold or wet feet. Nothing prevents sleep with so much cer. tainty as the neglect of your pedal extrem~ ities. oo Adapted for the Stage. From the Chicago Record. “What did that publisher say about your novel?” “He said it was too trashy to print, but would probably dramatize all right.” ine ee Mrs. Grimes—‘‘How in the world do you get rid of your stale bread? I have to throw lots of mine away.” Mrs. Smarte—“There’s no need for you to do that. Why not do as I do? I just hide it away from the childre: Mrs. Grimes—“Hide it away from the ehildren? What then?” Mrs. Smarte—“Then the children find it and eat up every morsel of it.”—Tit-Bits, which the plane of the eart Positions of the Principal Stars and Constetli: 30, Notable Constellations That Are Now Above the Horizon. IMPORTANT PART THAT LEQ PLAYS: « Formerly Used for Keeping Rec- ord of the Changing Seasons. THE STARS AND PLANETS ——— Written for The Evening Star. The most notable of the constellations which are now above the horizon at 9 p.m. are the Great r (Ursa Major) and the Lion (Leo), nearly overhead; Orion, Taurus and Auriga, in the west; the Hydra, or er Snake, which stretches its enormous length across the lower portion of th southern quadrant of the heavens, bearing upon its back the Cup (Crater) and the and in the east Virgo, Bo- otes and the Northern Crown. Ten stars of the first magnitude are now visible at the hour named. Given in the order of their brilliancy they are: Sirius, the De r, low in the southwest; Cap: the She-Goat, the principal star in Auri- at one-third of the distance from thi horizon to the zenith in the northw returus, the Bear-Warden, the prin star in Bo-etes, al about the same he as Capella, in the east, Rigel, in the left foot. and Ietelgeuse, in the right shoulder Orion; Procyon, the Little Dog, above rius, forming with it and Betelgeuse large equal-sided triangle: Aldel Bull's Bye. the principal’ star just setting a little north of west; Spic the Wheat-Ear, the al star in Vir- zo, low in the ilux, the more southerly of (Gemini) in mid- heavy sulus, the prin the Twins ns in the west; and R. cipal star in Leo. which has jus the meridian at two-thirds of the distance from the horizon to the zenith. The Hydra, Cap ana Crow. Below and a hittle to the right of Regulus stands the star Cor Hydrae—the Hydra’s Heart—which, although of only the second magnitude, is conspicuous from its loneli- ness, and, indeed, its Arabic name, Alphard, signifies the solitary one. This star will help to locate the Hydra, a constellation chiefly remarkable for its great length of over 10) degrees. The head of this mon- er snake, ms d by a short curved line est, the ey about mid This head is a gla is of the third from Regu the aster ail now St, di- 3 the star Spic Craw, both very pre spicuous, constellations ted by means of the he brightest star wh! them ix Alchiba, of t in the foot of the Crow. fies “tent,” and was proj the Arabs to the wh t a le e quite as close ar to a bird. The Ancient Leo, Li The old constellation, >, well-known Si form: and shoulders. pecially intere gin with, a q one can, etion, of which the the ting ite striking figure. the help of ¢ Ya crouch ne quite one may find upon a ¢ 21 chart become in recent times a notabi as in which with © markers wh angie of the ch. sons. the-sun, pur- suing his 1 of th heaven: i about tie middle of August it until the middle of Sepier Leo the sun enters th and soon thereafter about the 2ist of S the southern hemisphe But this ment is atively mode has not tor sos the cel Leo arent } “equinoctlal"”—which is the great circle a 8 whieh are above 7PM, THE SKIES IN APRIL. tended indefinite ifting its thi —are slowly = ub Th ra which is known as equinoxes, heavens in a lite entere rlicr than it doe: » cons > Ht would continually, although very place among th tw sun's path the is such that points perform a complete re 3 né Ist of Jun reckoning. At seven thousand ye: tered Leo upon 0 that as a se: the posit mn which ng as jorizen April 1 the starry stars, In at which ‘equinoxes” at path toward this movement of “precession of th tw thi crossing: tion of the than 28,000 years. x) years ago, the tion Leo a month ‘. Two thousand i this constellation e summer solstice— in our present mode of a time rs earlior stl riler—six or -the sun en- the vernal equinox, on marker Leo then held held by the constel- lation Aries at the time when our present ndar was estab . therefore, ear Le interesting da » det origina world by aly mine wh: i. if represented, a very ablish: Leo in Mythology. There are several facts which seem to bear upon this question, though thelr precise bearing has not yet been satisfactorily de- termined. One of them is a mythological fact. The Twelve Labors of Hercules are held with a high degre to stand for the tw 3 of the sun in the pas- | Sage the of the | doubtless. son through ¢. The first ff the N Was regd and fs shi ean ast wn at Dendera, in be z L first place. given to Leo by the at th we ven he its frst of the of th ning as the first the signs by the It was the ‘House of bas! The into Ei first astr had been as it by m two sculptures h of w In this promin strologers there is nd we may reasonably conjectur is due to the position of the constellation with respect ither to the summer solstice or the vernal equinox at time when the old Chalda- ns were working out their reading among the : kings and fons. Thus w half glimpse f an ancient date which fur- er researches among tombs and cunel- form inscriptions may yet bring with arness. To assume that Leo marked originally the vernal equinox would give to the zodiac an uity of over ten thous- So gre and years at an age may seem probable, but it is not impossible. Glacobini's Comet. January by Glace ini, at wwerr towa month she tion east fi utes—and antl about 10 S mo Jup'ter star. r Sat star, abo about ten degre rivs, aan. 31a faint comet was discovered in the constellation < directly south ar In the ry it has be e northwest, thr rd the gead of Andro- erees a of the setting at through a Planets. a morning star since at its greatest efon- degrees 19 month. Dur- th it may, misphere in the n, fs an evening is stil a morning 2 Uwe Jee mand ett nter tobog 4 double my shouil 1 i thought tf ftw er it would on your ainind, ar u might ve= to give it to me sometimes. —