Mechanics', operatives', and laborers' advocate., 1836-11-28

which l shall give you in my next. Y.
 FALLING STARs.-In the Scotsman of the 29th July, 1885, we gave an account of an ex traordinary fall of meteors over space of a thousand miles, in North America, on the 18th | of November, 1888. A similar phenomenon was observed in 1881 j. again in 1885, in Ohio, and at Orenbarg in Russia: by Humboldt also in l799; and all about the same period, namely, the middle of November: In 1883 the mete. ors continued the whole night: and it was ob. served that they seemed 10 'radiate from one point. This point did not shift with the change of the earth's position on its axis, but followed the apparent motion of the stars; in other words, it continued fixed in one part of the heavens
 Gin gamm'a Leo1is.) Their height was estima. ted at 2OO0 miles. From these and other facts, Professor O!msted, of Yale College, concluded that the fal|ing stars were portions of nubeza or body of fine combustible vapor, probably like the tail of a comet, revolving round the sun in six months, which portions were detached from the rest by the earths attraction, and falling with immense rapidity, took fire when they reached our atmosphere. The subject has not escaped the attention of M. Arago, whose pro. found knowledge of physics entities his opinion to great weight. He has adverted to it in pa. per, of which we have translation in the Ed. lnburgh Philosophical Journal for July. He mentions observations made in France in No. vember, 1885, confrmatory of the periodical occurrence of the meteors; rejects the idea of their originating within the atmosphere: and aliuding to the grand display of them in Ameri- ca in 1883, says "It is scarcely possible at present to see any other mode of explaining the astonishing appearance of these bodies, than by Fsuppdsfiig that, besides the large planets there moves round the sun myrads of small bodies which are not visible except when they pene. trate into our atmosphere, and there become in famed that some of these asteroids move in certain sense in groups, and that others are in. sulated"
 Again he says; "All these facts tend more and more to confirm us in the belief that there exists gone composed of millions of small bodies whose orbits meet the plane of the elliptic to. wards the point the earth occupies every year, from the llth to the 18th of November. N is c ne~ planetary corld just beginning to De re- realed to us." M. Arago's idea is, that mil. lions of globules, or small parcels of nebulous matter, circulate round the sun in rorter or whirlpool which crosses the earth's path about the middle of November; and some of these, drawn from their course by the earth's at. traction, take fire when they reach the at- mosphere, and assume the form of shooting star'. Hesuggests that they should by locked for at the opposite point of the ecliptic about the end of April, and alludes to an observation of Messier, who saw, in June, TIT, at midday, Ca prodigims number of black gobules pass across the sun for about five minutes" Might not these te asteroids This hypothesis ex- plains the facts better than Professor Om. sted's; for we may suppose millions of these small nebubus bodies revolving at all distan- ces and angles round the sun, but distributed unequally; some moving singl ly, some in groups or circular trains, and coming in contact with the earth at any point of it's orbit, less or more frequently, less or more abundant in that part of space through which it is moving at the time. We would thus ac- count for the occasional appearance of falling stars at all seasons of the year. The old notion that they were trains of hydrogen, or some other combustible gas existing in the atmosphere, and accidently infamed, is found to be untenable. [Scotsman..