Saltus Grammar School - Yearbook (Hamilton, Bermuda)

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24 cent gases. Most of the comets ' light is reflected sunlight. Their tails always point away from the sun and are produced by tiny particles of dust being forced out by the sheer pressure of sunlight on the light material. As far as I know, I was the first person to see the comet in Ber- muda. Since that time I have seen and observed the comet three times. The comet is now invisible to the naked eye, about 35° to 40° above the horizon at 8.00 p.m. At the time of the first observa- tion the comet was about 28° above the horizon M. S. BREWER Form V. Our Gym Class Our Upper Third Gym Class is held every Wednesday and is the fourth class in the morning, just after break. As soon as the break bell rings, Upper third B. boys rush into the changing room and change smartly. By that time our Gym master, Mr. Alger, has arrived and he says: Right boys, this morning we will go down to the field and play a game of soft ball. A cheer breaks out, and he says: We won ' t go if you are going to do that. So every one is silent. We arrive down at the field, pick teams quickly, then start the game. There are twenty-four boys so we have twelve on each side. The first two innings go quite smoothly, there is no noise, every one does what the captain says even if he thinks it is wrong. But when the third innings comes everyone wants to pitch, nobody wants to play catcher and no one will listen to the captain. By the time we have settled down again our gym class is all over and we have to go up and get ready for our next class. T. A. HETZEU Form Upper 3B. A Narrow Escape I am Fred Smith, and I live in Wales. My house is situated near an old disused drift mine which has a small railway track connected to the main line which was used for hauling the coal trucks from inside the mine to the main line where it

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23 The Arend-Roland Comet On Wednesday the lOfth. of April 1957 I first read about a comet which would be visible in Great Britain in April. Although it may- have been seen in England I was not sure, then, whether it woiuld be visible here or not, but I had my hopes. I made arrangements to rise at 4.00 a.m. on Monday 15th. When I awoke and dressed it was still very dark (the comet Ax ' end-Roland was said to be visible just before dawn, rising with the sun, and was to be visible at about the middle of the month). While I was waiting I endeavoured to increase my knowledge of stars, and constellations and their relative positions. At last the eastern sky brightened perceptibly but a high dawn rendered the comet invisible. I still searched the sky frantically but all was fruitless. Soon after this several articles were published in the newspapers about the comet. A Mr. Winfield, a noted amateur astronomer, said that he had seen the comet during a trip to Barbados but said that the comet probably would not be visible here. We did not hear much more about the comet until, on the 24th. we saw in ' The Telegraph ' that the comet would soon be visible low in the N.W., setting some time after the sun. The paper showed a dia- gram illustrating the movement of the comet through the night sky during April and May. I then made a few simple calculations and decided that the comet would be visible in Bermuda, as the constella- tions in which it would appear each night moving progreissively high- er in the sky as the month advanced, were still visible here. Friday, 26th. April, was the finest day there had been for a week- There was little cloud in the N.W. during the late afternoon. At 7.30 p.m. my father and I made our way to our vantage point on North Shore. At 7.40 p.m. I had my 40 mm. telescope rigged up on a low hillock. The brighter stars were already visible and the lesser ones were appearing quickly. I had a good idea where to look for the comet, and was already searching the N.W. for it. At 7.50 p.m. I saw it, a faint blur in the N.W. I trained my telescope on it and sure enough the nucleus was clearly visible. At 8.00 p.m. it showed as a large luminous, transparent shuttlecock with a tail pointing at 2 o ' clock extending through Perseus moving to- wards the zenith in that constellation — comets do not speed across the sky as meteorites do but appear as blurred stars with tails. Comets, it is believed, consist mainly of fine dust, small stones, and incandes-

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25 could be transported all over the world. Although the mine is no longer in use the rails are still there and there is a truck on them. When I came home for the holidays I longed to explore around the mine, and as it was forbidden to go near the mine I arranged with my pal, Bill Blake, to go there when his and my parents went out at the same time. At last our luck came. It was on a Wednesday afternoon when we set out. I was carrying a torch and Bill had written a note telling where we had gone. Soon we reached the mine and began to explore. We got into the coal truck and Bill, who liked fiddling with things, pulled a lever. This must have been a brake because the truck started rolling and we were too terrified to jump out or to stop the truck. We saw the gaping mouth of the mine in front of us then all became pitch black. There was a thud when we reached the bottom of the slope and we were hurled clear of the truck which overturned. We got up and I felt for my torch, it was not broken and it seemed heavenly to see a light again. We started on up the slope which we had just come down until we came to a fork and we decided to take the right hand side of it. We must have taken the wrong turning because we found ourselves in a maze of passages so, as we could not get out, we sat down and went to sleep. Sometime later we were awakened by a light shining into our faces and we saw it was a rescue party. We were then informed that we had been in the mine for 10 hours. This certainly was a narrow escape. P. HILLIER, Form IV L. The Sinking Ship As I finned my way through the dark water, I noticed the bodies of my friends all around me. As we went on our way I gasped at what appeared to be a wooden object coming down from above and the thing that puzzled me was the strange looking holes in it. I was afraid at first but then I threw what fear I had in my mind away. I decided to investigate the object. On the side of the thing was inscribed Sultana . The object did not look