SPACE EXPLORATION

Today in the Bullis Room, we were thinking about forty-five years ago,  on July 21, 1969,  when Neil Armstrong became the first man to put his feet on the moon.

Nettie Bullis was 76 years old at the time.  For most of her lifetime,  "space exploration" referred to the land out west. Six states were explored and officially became part of the United States during Nettie's lifetime: Utah, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona, Alabama, and Hawaii. The idea that the space to be explored was "out there in the heavens" was new to many of us who remember that time.

Whether the space is out west, around the world, or simply "out there," the Bullis collection has some interesting books about those places. In fact, there are LOTS of books on getting acquainted with this planet we live on. There is only one book that covers the  moon that Neil Armstrong walked on, and we think it's a very special book:

The Orbs Around Us: 

A Series of Familiar Essays on the Moon and Planets,

Meteors and Comets, the Sun and coloured pairs of suns.

By Richard A. Proctor, published by Green and Co. London, 1872

So again, we extend to you a special invitation to stop by the Bullis Room and let us show you (and show off!) these great classic books.

CLIMATE CHANGE

Would Nettie Bullis have been concerned about the issue of climate change? We think the answer to that question is a big YES.  Would she have taken the conservative position? the liberal position? or been more of a moderate on the subject?  Bottom line: We don't know.

However, we think she (and her brother Charlie, as well) would have attended an upcoming presentation the Friends of MPL are sponsoring:

GARDENING, CLIMATE CHANGE, AND YOU

by Kathryn Franz, Master Gardener

Monday, August 4, 2014, 1 PM

in Macedon Public Library's Community Room

Our Bullis volunteers are planning to attend this program to hear these specific issues addressed:

Basics of Climate Change

Climate Impacts on Your Garden

The Climate Conscious Gardener

So please consider this your official invitation to access useful information on what climate change is and how it may impact all of us. 

Some of our previous posts have focused on climate, as well.  You might want to review them before the August presentation. Here's a link to two of them:

http://bullisbookchronicles.blogspot.com/2012_03_01_archive.html

THE LIBERTY BELL

Today, on the birthday of our country's Independence, we share with you this poem from the Bullis book The Liberty Bell, by Friends of Freedom, published in Boston by the American Anti-Slavery Society, 1839-1858.

Sonnet

To the Friends of the Anti-Slavery Cause in America

By Bernard Barton

"Liberty's Bell" hath sounded its bold peal

where Man holds Man in Slavery!  at the sound --

Ye who are "faithful 'mid the faithless found!"

Answer its summons with unfaltering zeal.

Let Freedom's banner to the winds reveal

A Star more bright than all that yet have crowned

Your country's flag, for you to gather round

With higher, holier hopes for human weal!

Your Cause must triumph: is triumphant now,

In countless votaries, daily, hourly won

To swell your ranks! -- doubts and misgivings shun;

Lift up in hope, to heaven, an unbleached brow,

And utter in its face, your fearless vow,

That Liberty's behests shall all be done!

Woodbridge, Suffolk, England