SELF-TAUGHT.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 799, 23 April 1910, Page 14

SELF-TAUGHT.

BRICKLAYER, CHIMNEY-SWEEP AND ASTRONOMER. AN INTERESTING LIFE STOBT. It was mentioned tho other day that ,Mr. 1 , . Hitehings, of Christchurch, intended to visit Tasmania in order to observe the total eclipse of the sun, visible there next month. Mr. Hitehings is a ■ bricklayer and chimney-sweep, who still works at his trades, and whose one recreation apart from horticulture is astronomy, upon which, out of his earnings, he has spent several hundred pounds. Hβ makes no secrot of the fact that he has had little education. Indeed, he justifiably takes some pride in the progress he has made in an abstruse science in' spite of this handicap.

When a "Press" representative visited him in his home in Sydenham, Mr. Hitehings led him to a little room, which he described as his etudy. It was a place of cameras, photographic plates/and materials, books, papers and instruments. It seemed to be a place of chaos, but the owner demonstrated that it was one of order by ■ the deftness» and confidence with which ho sorted out anything that was wanted. A ' on £ " ne °f lantern slides was produced, and Mr. Etchings talked familiarly of nobulae, corona, orbits, periuelions, and other things whose names convey little to the uninitiated. The crowning glory of the equipment is the observatory. It is a fairly large circular building like an immense drum, surmounted by a • revolving dome. ( The prominent feature of the interior is, of course, a large telescope, a good deal larger than that at the college, which is built on the equatorial principle adopted by the and-other observatories. It pointed through a-gap in the roof at the sun, and- the'visitor had the- pleasure of taking a closer "look , at-the sun than he had previously enjoyed. ■ Attention was drawn to the brown spots, microscopically small, which appeared on the reflection of the sun, and they were labelled as sun spots. Mr. Hitehings then produced a spectroscope, one of the latest design, which he had recently imported, and a peep through it revealed the glorious colouring of the spectrum. The photographing apparatus and other attachments were exhibited and their working explained. Mr. Hitehings made many of the fittings himself, and though, they are. not models of bnrnished neatness, they fulfil their purpose efficiently. .■•■'• '..'.: "What induced you to take up the study of astronomy?" Mr. Etchings was asked..

He naively confessed that desire to do what no one else in the town was doing had influenced, him'.to''some extent.

-"As far as iny capacity goes, I hare I achieved nil I want to do. My records go to England, and the record of the appear in the journal with the work of professors and other learned astronomers.- My first telescope cost me 4s. Gd., and after that I got another costing .£5. " Then I sent specifications Home to four : different houses for a large instrument. I chose the most expensive one from the tenders I got, and paid £50 for the lens. If I had known as much then as I do now; 1 would have paid'ißlOO for the. lens. I have achieved everything I want as far as my education goes, and if a man has not education he can't go ahead. I call myself a practical astronomer. There is no theory or reckonings about me. I take the size of the sun and the size of the spots, and my records come out very evenly with those taken by men who are better equipped than I am. . I lecture here occasionally, and always get a good hearing."