Science: 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...

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