The Louisiana cotton-boll. [volume] (Vermilionville [i.e. Lafayette], Attakapas, La.) 1872-1883, 1878-03-06
Shooting Stars.

The lecturer reminded his hearers that,
besides the stars we see ON clear night
and besides those the telescope makes
known, there are countless bodies NOV
ing through space which even the most
powerful telescope fails to reveal till
they CO. ne either in the orbit of the Garth
or OF It's atmosphere. These are what
are called meteorites and shooting stars,
and it il important TO distinguish clearly
between the two. They are alike lumin-
ous from the same cause, that of friction
in passing through the atmosphere,
though but few people have ever seen
meteorite falling, The number of shoot
ing stars is infinitely greater than is
usually supposed, for observers with
telescopes often see them fash across the
feld in dimensions too small to be seen
with the naked eye. We know that
shooting stars undergo combustion in
passing through olrsa tnsppphsre- What.
becomes of the debrisg The snow ol the
Alps, far away from furnaces, contains
globules of iron, and dust that asquietly
accumulated'in exposed places contains
them also. 1t is supposed they represent
some OF the debris, Though we may
grumblo at our atmosphere in bad
weather, we must recollect it, at least,
does this--it burns up these bodies that
are pelting down upon us at q rate one
hundred times greater than the missiles
of an eighty-one ton gun, and, but for
this burning up, they would be at any
rate awkward for us. In looking at the
knowledge accommodated with regard TO
shooting stars, the first point to notice,
Professor Ball says, is that certain great
showers are periodical, and always come
from the same parts of the heavens.
According to the constellation from
which they appear to come, they are
called Lyriads, Perseids, Orionids, Leon
i ids, etc The inference from these recur-
ring periods is that the orbit Of the earth
then cuts the orbit in which a mass Of
these Is moving. With this fact Of
recurrence it must be noticed that certain
comets are periodical, and from a
comparison Of their supposed orbits
with those Of groups of these
bodies. connection between them
is inferred, whatever may be
the origin of the comets, which
is not vet known. Meteorites, on the
, contrary, are never known to come from
! the direction Of a comet path, II a
: meteorite is carefully examined, it is
} seen to be fragment of some rock, and
that Of one closely analogous to our
earth's volcanic rocks II we consider
ju.garn the volcanic sources from which
they could have come, we sec the sun
7 would have force enough to drive of
| fragments; but II Is hardly likely that
there are solid rocks there to drive off
Jules Verne is right, Professor Bail says
ia calculating that a body driven "
from the earth with force equal to siS
y miles a second would not return. From
Ceres three miles a second would be sui
ficient. Examining all the planets il
turn, ii seems improbable that the
meteorites originate from any Of them
1t seems much more likely that they
were in former times Of greater volcanic
activity driven up from the earth itself
and they again, after lapse of ages, NEE
: the earth in it's orbit. The theory tina
they come in from unlimited space is
Professor Bell thinks, highly improbable
--TProfessor Bell's Lecture before th
Londen Institution.