STARS IN DAYLIGHT

Southland Times, Issue 22915, 13 June 1936, Page 21 (Supplement)

STARS IN DAYLIGHT

(By

Eric Cook.)

It’s difficult to realise, as you look up into a clear noonday sky such as we often experience at this time of year, that in reality it is as filled with bright stars as any frosty night-sky. Yet this is quite true, and can be proved by any of us quite easily. It is the bright glare of the sun that "puts out” the stars, just as the electric lamp in the kitchen that lights up the whole room so brightly at flight, becomes a weak, miserable gleam if you turn it on in the full light of day. But it is quite easy to see the stars in the daytime. if you know how to do it. In England, in 'he ruined castles, or the old country-houses standing back from the main roads in the centre of wooded parks, there are often to be found, in their kitchens or dining-rooms, enormous open fireplaces with coats-of-arms carved in the stone above the mantelpiece. If the fire is out, it is possible to walk right into these, as you would into an enormous cupboard; and if you do this, and look up through the long, dark chimney, you can see through the tiny circular aperture at the top, two or three stars twinkling like silver jewels embedded in the deep blue-black of the sky. Even in New Zealand it is possible to do this sometimes, if you happen to have a really high, straight chimney, and you can poke your head far enough into the fireplace without getting a shower of soot for your trouble. Similarly, it is possible to see the stars at midday from the bottom of a deep well; or even from the top, in the following manner. Shade the eyes carefully with both hands, or with a funnel of paper; then look down the well until the eyes become accustomed to the dark, and the reflection of the stars will twinkle up from the water at the bottom, even though the sun is blazing all round you. Curious things have happened owing to this fact of the appearance of the stars whenever the sun’s light is cut off (it also happens during total eclipses). People exploring a deep mine for the first time have returned to the bottom of the shaft, only to be puzzled by seeing what, appeared to be a starlit night far above them, when they thought it was still daytime, and have concluded that they must have spent longer in the mine than they had supposed. Imagine their surprise when, as they ascended the shaft to the surface, the stars quicklyfaded as though the dawn were coming, and the clear daylight met them again as they came to the top.

The squirrel has a bushy tail for two reasons. First, the tail provides an excellent blanket with which to cover himself in the winter, and second in summer time he finds it useful as a rudder. As he leaps from one bough to an-, other his tail helps him to keep his balance.