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Show IRELAND'S GREAT ASTRONOMER Ireland's great astronomer. Sir Bob-ert Bob-ert Ball, is sixty-three years old. and though he has been astronomical professor pro-fessor -at Cambridge for" a" decade; he remains a thorough Irishman still. -His career as an astronomer dates back to 1865, when, shortly after leaving Trinity Trin-ity college, Dublin, he was placed in I charge of the famous observatory es-! es-! tablished by the Earl of Rosse, at Bin', j in King's county, which at one time rejoiced re-joiced in the possession of the biggest ! telescope in the world. Sir Robert is renowned for. his happy and humorous comparisons between the celestial and the terrestrial. When the possibility of signaling to Mars was under discussion, he pointed out that if a flag the. size of Ireland were : waved from a pole to match, there would be "just the ghost of a chance that an astronomical Marsin might per- ' Ceive the ghost of a flutt-r ..n .. I ' earth." ' li" I |