University of Santa Clara - Redwood Yearbook (Santa Clara, CA)

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14 THE REDWOOD An Empty Song By Paul D. Bean, ' 24. Evening findeth the wood Hollow and deep, Blue-paved with celandine In scented sleep. Water courseth here ' Mid roots most pale: From fall to fall she telleth A mountain tale. To her sole thread of song The wild wood listeth, Till down the drippling aisles Sweet morning misteth. Leaning larches old, Hearing this note Through years of crumbled wings, Have it by rote. Very old are the songs Of drear black rills, Harping upon the old Lifting of hills.

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THE REDWOOD 13 The Prodigal A Reverie By Victor J. Martin. HEN Diego scaled the garden wall of Mission San Antonio de Padua, he little thought of any unhappiness, either in the dimness of the starlit plain or in the hidden years of his life. Yet never more would he talk with his friend Padre Jose Pedro, and the yucca, now like a fragrant fountain of silver in the moonlight, would bloom but once for him again. Diego was running away, leaving the mouldering walls and sagging tiles which had mothered him and from whose shadow he had never before ven- tured. Foolish boy ! He had heard of the gaiety of the city of San Francisco growing up beside Mission Dolores, and he longed to join in its pleasures and opportunities. Poor impotent Indian! Thus was he drawn into the struggle for wealth and apparent happiness. Years passed. California was now a great State; and San Francisco a large and wealthy city. But Diego in his old age found his portion bitter and unhappy. One evening as he made his way homeward from the city, he chanced to pass Mission Dolores, and weary he entered to rest. The interior was dark and quiet and the flickering of the sanctuary lamp brought unwonted peace to Diego ' s soid. He sat down near the holy water font, but no prayer came to his lips, for he was tired and had forgotten how to pray. Then, as he gazed at the altar, the sun, struggling through dull clouds threw a beam of russet light upon the statue of San Antonio of Padua. . . . In the morning the old man set out on his journey. The way was long and tedious, but an insatiable desire for peace put the strength of other years in his limbs. On the second day with slow and painful steps Diego entered the Santa Clara Valley. And here in the foothills lay the Mission of Santa Clara, with an olive garden, and lush grass to receive his tired body. But with his hand upon the bell at the gate, memories of San Antonio rose up in his mind, a vision invested with ineffable peace. The inspiration failed not. He bore his weariness, and did not ring. Evening came days later. Diego approached the Mission of San Antonio, a speck upon the dry, golden plain. The sun was lowering behind the Santa Lucia mountains, and its dull red glow filled the valleys of heaven with a delicate rose mist. The steps of the prodigal became slower as the distance lessened. He was failing and when he reached the broken facade and echo- ing gallery, death had dimmed his eyes. Diego saw only vague outlines in the soft light, and not the desolation of the abandoned place. The moon was now above the mountains, and the old man wept with joy. The parched vine upon the wall still bloomed, and the dead stalk of the yucca bore silver flowers as in the years of his youth. The fountain was dry. but Diego heard afar the gurgling ' of cool waters. He qui- etly sank to rest in the dark and ruined cloister. He was home forever!

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THE REDWOOD 15 How the Sun Spots Work By J. Howard Ziemann, ' 2G. T is not without cause that the Rev. Jerome S. Ricard, S. J., Director of the Observatory of the University of Santa Clara, is called the Padre of the Rains , for his weather predictions for years have been so unfailing that it seems as though the rains come at his bid- ding. It was Father Ricard who first observed the influence exerted upon our earth by the phenomena called Sun Spots, and it was he who discovered that by following out certain calculations he could determine long in advance the changes in barometric pressure, thus being able to fore- cast the weather much further ahead than the ordinary weather-man who pre- dicts only after the barometer has registered a rise or fall in atmospheric pressure; and it is needless to say that the change in the weather follows almost immediately upon such predictions. The Sun Spot Theory as promulgated by Father Ricard embraces a two- fold proposition, for it regards both the origin of the sun spot and its effect upon our weather. It is. perhaps, the latter theory which is the more inter- esting of the two, but since the latter is merely an application of the first, it is essential in order to speak intelligently of it that something of the cause of the sun spots be first known. Before proceeding further, let us see what a sun spot looks like. When an image of the sun is projected through a tele- scope upon a sheet of paper so that it appears as a bright disk about twelve inches in diameter, if there be a visible sun spot at that time, it is seen as a black dot considerably smaller than a pea. Or there may be several of these dots gathered in a group or dispersed in the vicinity of a somewhat larger one, and it is this little dot or group of dots, as the case may be, which is the sun spot itself. It is really enormous, for one of these little black dots may be a hundred thousand miles in diameter and could swallow with ease a score of worlds like ours. In determining the causes of sun spots, only the eight planets of our solar system are considered, since, as far as is known up to the present, these are the only ones close enough to the sun to exert any notable influence upon it. These planets, to name them in the order of their proximity to the sun, the central point about Avhich they revolve, are Mercury, Yenus, the Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, Mercury being the closest to the sun and making one complete trip around it about every eighty days ; the Earth is third in nearness and makes a complete trip once a year, while Neptune is the most distant and requires about one hundred and sixty-nine years to make the trip. These planets, with only comparatively slight variations, are all on the same plane ; that is to say, if the sun and these eight planets revolv- ing around it Avere represented by buoyant balls floating upon a smooth pond of water, they would all be about half submerged and half exposed. Mercury and Venus, the two planets closest to the sun, are in a small degree exceptions to this general rule for they are rather erratic in their courses, but their eccen-