Sun Men to Moon-land

The burning bush through which God spoke to Moses was atop either Mt. Sinai or, according to another tradition, Mount St. Catherine twelve miles to the south. St. Catherine is the higher. It is the highest (8,540 ft.) peak, the point nearest the Sun in the rocky Sinai Peninsula. For that reason--and because the atmosphere thereabouts is almost dustless, almost hazeless--rather than for holy associations, the Smithsonian Institution decided that the top of St. Catherine was the best accessible place in the entire Eastern Hemisphere for a solar observatory. Secretary Charles Greeley Abbot last week announced that building will start at once.

Weather on Earth depends upon radiations from the Sun. Secretary Abbot is certain that if meteorologists know enough facts about the solar radiations they can make long-time predictions about Earth's weather. Years of solar observations have demonstrated definite cycles in the Sun's emanations, have made possible rough predictions of long summers, cold winters, good radio reception.

The site for a solar observatory must be high, dry and dustless. Best place found on earth is Mt. Montezuma, Chile. Excellent is Table Mountain, Calif. The Smithsonian's Washington station where Dr. Abbot works is hazy, merely geographically convenient. Until last year the Institution maintained an observatory on Mt. Brukkaros in southwest Africa. Dusty desert winds made that place untenable.

Atop Sinai's Mount St. Catherine is a small, poorly constructed chapel which belongs to the Greek Orthodox monastery of St. Catherine ten miles down the massif. The uneven chapel floor shows the impress, say the monks, of St. Catherine who lay there emitting light 300 years after Emperor Maximinus had her head hacked off.* In this same vicinity where Dr. Abbot's men will measure the Sun, men long before Abram left Ur used to worship the Moon. Sinai was then the Land of Sin the moon god.

*A shoulder of butchered lamb, preserved last week in the cooler of the Wisconsin Dairy & Food Division at Madison, testifies for this miracle. The meat glows with a yellowish light. The bones appear outlined as in an X-ray film. State Chemist Harry Klueter last week said the phosphorescence was due to bacteria in the meat.

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