The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, October 7, 1900, Page 8

THE SUNDAY CALL. AT THR TELESCOP o 4 E- r, and at the con ch 2 woman Americaine As & member of the staff of the Parls Observet she works nightly alone in the big of the world is b ry. She makes in- and is a reg e observ servatio: r to the “Bulletin of the French Soclety a magazine of is. On November 16, 1809 rmany and Russia madp ofticlai ns of the Leon whose re- ng been eagerly walted for ers and the disciples of as- The French ty of Aerfa! S e Miss Klumpke to rep- it on the expedition to the heavens. d the perilous feat and I report through the “Bul- a Soclete Astronomique de offic st of the world’s greatest work- ers lumpke 18 mc She depre- vemen' nd hepes to dis- t them. It was only in an unguarded h enthusiasm about her 1d in San Franciseo I would < at night watching the stars. ation developed into a passion al pursuits. Later, while lucation in Germany and d the success of women in as- as taught by anclent and con- history, gave me courage to attempt the life for which I longed. “After taking my sclentific degrees in ; of Paris T was admitted 1dent to the Paris Observatory in neous tempo: vember, 188. That was the greatest day of my life, one that I can never for- get. For five months I worked with all my energles at the preliminary studies. When, in 1887, the predecessors of the nent Committee for Astral Photog- and for the Survey of the Heavens met here they needed a translator. As I was sald to have command of English, French and German, with knowledge of the sclentific terms of the three languages, I was asked to do the work. This I un- the head of the force whose duty it is to dertook and the committee was kind @ FI TR it el : 3 ° @ P in Renssclaer Cou prosper- |} ous farmer is the owner of a team -’ of mus s whict serviceable arive 3 can good time on the road. The other day he drove them someth twenty miles and it was deep twilight wher were four miles e A n had begun, and nbrella he urged them forw L3 the darkness grew dense and black the team stopped short. The driver tried coaxing first, then the b ng no whip, but they wouid not move, Nothing of the kind had ever happened before. The had been skittish at times, but never balky The driver at last got out to reason with them, or, rather, mare that was the team’s team has a team with the brown Jeader. Of course every Jeader that determines its course as abso- jutely es & walking delegate d_termines on the course of a lot of cloakmakers. Ho petted the mare on the head and spoke to her gently, but she only put her ears back and whinnied softly. A TOBACCO-CHEWING MARE. All at once a bright thought struck him. He recalled that he had more than once d himself by ziving to ‘this mare chewing tobacco. She had always taken it readily enough. Horses oftep have a predilection for the tobacco habit. some Deer, by the way, bave the same fond- ness The weed seems to be a sort of tonic for both horses and deer. The driver remembered that he had a ! e plug of tobaceo in his pocket—a 10- cent plug, he called it. He took this plug out and was Wonder- ing how he could break off a plece for the mare, when she put down her mouth and, with the pettishness of a child, snatched the whole plug out of his hand. She chewed with the greatest satisfaction and he, being famillar with horses, concluded that the balking was over, got into the carriage and drove along. There was no further trouble. Here was e clear case of a strike for chewing tobacco entirely outside the walls of a penitentiary. Mustangs are queer creatures, anyhow. SIRL N enough to compliment me for tne way In which it was done. “In a few days, when they hold their next meeting in Parls, these gentlemen, to whom I owed my first and subsequent promotions, win be recetved by me as Directrice du Bureau de 1'Observatoire de Paris. “Astronomy has been called monoton- ous; the study, night after night, year after year, of the same lights and the same combinations. But it is monotony on the sublime scale, which rises to the variety of infinitude.” SALIFORNAS ASTRONOMER AT WORN = PARIS Then Miss Klumpke consented with much less reluctance to talk more techni- cally. * “I am deeply interested in astral pho- tography,” she sald. “It is the latest and greatest ald to astroromers., The suc- cess of the Harvard observers with the spectral analysis of stars, to determine the vapors which prove their composition. s leading us to concentrate our endeavors on astral photography. “This {s done by means of photographic plates which have been put In contact with silver plates, so ridged that the sil- ver will mark the sensitive plate In squares of five millimeters. Since one mill- imeter represents one minute of arc in the heavens the five millimeter space repre- sents five minutes of arc. As every de- fect of the silver impresses the gelatin, and since, moreover, the sensitive sub- stance {tself often and unavoldably has defects, each star is taken three times with an exposure of twenty minutes, the plate being slightly moved between the exposures, so that the result obtained is three stars formmg & triangie. When this triangle is perfect the dark spot on the plate is proved to be a star. With the large stars this triangle is only vis- Ible as a spot until greatly magnified. The smaller stars are visible as triangles un- der slight enlargement. “To study the plates obtained the milli- meter squares are subdivided by means » threads from spiders’ webs, this being the most delicate substance known. Steel threads have been tried and/are in use in some places, but on the whols their re- sults are not as good as those from spiders. “The exact position of the star is deter- mined by the relation to these lines. Bach plate contains from seventy to 1400 stars.” Miss Klumpke is a slender woman with piquant face and winsome address. She lives, not with her sister Anna at the chateau bequeathed by the lamented Bon- heur, but in Paris—n Paris, so as t6 be near the observatory. Her mother and sister Julla live with her at the pretty pension with the unpoetic address, No. 10 Frol de Veau. Her life i3 a most regular one, unvaried by little or no social recre- ation. The nights find her In the observa- tory; the days asleep until well toward the dinner hour. There is a short time for a drive, some inevitable correspondence or some inevitable shopping—Miss Klumpke eourts nelther—then dinner and a family chat afterward. Then away again to the observatory. A clockllke Hfe for any woman not old, but Dorothea Klumpke says she craves no other. The poetry of life she seeks and says she finds in tne stars. - Epeaking of her balloon trip from the plain of St. Denis to the Norman har- bor of St. Germain-sur-Ay, 176 miles from Parls, in pursuit of knowledge of the vis- iting Leonids, she satd: “The balloon continued to rise, ana the earth, a dying song, went further and furth o silence. THE WORIDS GREATESE ASTRONMER ~Altnough the preceding tnree nights 1 had had little centrated all my a four hours on the s tigued. In moments | strong enough to cut weights. It mounts In se and seeks and finds there @ and pure gratification of its longings The soul of Dorothea Klum among the stars which are her and had econ- e the 1 ereal study. From which famillar statement it must not be Inferred that she has gone to any other than earthly giory She lives and labors and is one of ¢ happlest of women In this happiness-sea. world. ADA PATTHRSON. A Close Shave. “An officer often has to risk his life to protect & prisoner,” remarked an old rail road detective the other day ‘“Ddut gene ally a Nttle strategy will outwit & mob The queerest case of that kind I ever heard of happened years ago, out in Colc rado at a place called Carbonville was a pretty tough mining camp, and one night, in a brawl, the town marshal vas shot dead by a gambler named Connors. The murderer was a stranger In the place and managed to make his escape, but t marshal had been very popular, and t miners swore all kinds of vengea About a week later a coupls of deputy heriffs captured ( s at a place some hirty miles away decided take him to the next ¢ or safe keep- ing. The road rough Carbonville, and as the news arrest bad already eat of the ROTHEA KLUMPKE reached that camp ana stirred it to Tever pitch, they caloulated, very correctly, that there was likely to be trouble whea they showed up. “At last one of the deputies, a reckless sort of a ed Jake Hizgzins, sus- gested a look a good deal like Conno . ‘and those {olks over there har Suppose I play prisoner, wt x 2 town by a back road hang me right away sudden, and while they are pow-wowing about Connors will be through and gone. Then we can tell "em who I am, show ‘em our badges and papers, have the laugh on the gang and follow on behind." This brilllant {dea, which would have cccurred to nobody but a scatter-b natic like Higgins, was promptly He was hand- cuffed, put in & wagon between two depu- ty sheriffs and the real prisoner brought up the Year with another officer In a bugsy. “It was about dusk when the wagon reached Carbonvil tective, “and, just a: crowd of tough ecitt They promptly held up the team, and the spokesman told the officers ood citizens of the camp Lad decided !t wasn't worth while to waste Connors a 1 that was needed 1 plece of hemp, and they brought a section of shaft rope, ady for the ceremony. The deputy be time_ but the to drag Higg! some of the others the rope over a nea; nd the he yel continued the «e- they expected. a s were In walung. him short and started out of the wagon, while hrew the loose end of limb. They looked attled. “.iold 't the man! t the whols wag. As they had n was re- And with story as fast as they cefved with been in was worth an old ing up with buggy into a 1 collar bone b it was a mis He had 1 Connors f been the 1 Tong m it of th six_months In Jall, ot & change o and was act acquitted on don't know what becam:. gins died a year or so ago. story, boys, and the very memory.”—New Orleans