The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1879-08-28

BILE without instruments the average
weight does not exceed an ounce. This
minute bullet of a world, composed of
the same material as the larger masses
that sometimes fall hot and smoking to
the earth, is so intensely heated by its
rapid motion through the air, the earth
going nineteen miles a second in one
direction, and the meteor about twenty
five second in nearly an opposite d.
rection, or forty-four miles q second,
that it is wholly consumed and dissi-
pated in vapor. Occasionally larger
ones have mass enough to stand this
heat till they strike the earth, and then
we find meteoric stones' and Jumps
of metal, mainly iron. The number of
meteOrs thrown into contact with the
atmosphere looks incredible at first,
but when we reflect that there is no
night in the year that an observer here
or at any other point may not see
dozen within the scope of his horizon,
and that scope is not large one; that
many thousands of similar separate OBJ
servations could be made all over the
world; that the ocean, twice as large
as the land, receives still more that
are rarely seen at all, and that the
whole of this huge number is doubled
by those that pass in daylight and can't
be seen, the estimate does not seem so
unreasonable.
What are these meteors, where do
they come from, and how do they get
in our way? Professor Kirkwood, of
our State University, whose scientific
communications to the Journal are we'll
known to our readers, in his admirable
treatise on the subject, shows that the
worlds we can see and measure are of
all magnitudes, from Jupiter, 10000
miles in diameter, to the earth, less
than 5000, and Hestia,' one of the
group of planetoids between Mars and
Jupiter, which is only fifteen miles in
diameter. The recently discovered
moons of Mars are only ten miles.
Analogy forces to the conclusion that
other worlds or bodies belonging to the
solar system prolong this descending
series, and are still more minute and
still more abundant, as the smaller of
the 200 asteroids are far more numer-
Gus than the larger ones. Telescope
meteors, or those barely large enough
to make q visible blaze to the eye, must
therefore exist in countless profusion.
And as they move round the sun in
orbits slightly varying. but SO nearly
identical as to keep them all in sort
of lump or elongated mass, they inter-
sect the earth's orbit and make periods
of great displays of celestial fireworks.
There are four or i've of these masses,
but that of August, which we encounter
every year, and that of November ev-
cry thirty-three years-the most aston
ishing of all-are the chief ones. The
great November mass is supposed to
have lived outside of the solar system
till about the year 126, when it ran near
enough to Uranus to be dragged from
its course by the attraction of that
huge planet and set in motion round
the sun. We have met it every third
of century since, but the records are
very incomplete.
1t is probable that in its first form it
was more compact and "chunky" than
now, but as each of the minute bodies
composing it move around the sun in
its own orbit and with its own motion,
there would be some difference in the
times of revolution. In other words,
some would have the =" inside track!
and get round little ahead of others.
Thus it would come that the "lump''
of meteors would be gradually string
ing out along the the orbit into a sort
of procession like body of horses in a
race, growing longer and thinner every
year. 1t is estimated that it is now
about 100, 900 miles through and over
500, 0OO. 900 miles long. so that the head
is almost touching the earth's orbit
while the tail is back between Jupiter
and Uranus. Its length is so great
that, moving twenty-five or twenty
seven miles q second, it takes two
years to pass clear round the earth,
and the consequence is that we have
two meteoric displays in two successive
years, in 1882 in Europe, in 1888 here,
in 1866 in Europe and in 1867 here.
The August ring is encountered every
year, which induces the opinion that it
is complete now, and spreads clear
round its orbit, though it probably
started in lump, like the November
body. If so, it is an older body than
that of November, the latter not having
been so subjected to the disjointing at
traction of the sun long enough to be
drawn out from q ''lump'' into line.
A comet is travelling at the head of
each of these rings. Some astronomers
believe that the enormous upheavals of
incandescent gas from the sun. OBJ
served during total eclipses, occur in
other suns or "fixed stars" and that
the gas thus projected into space may
make some of our cometary bodies. In
their movements they encounter mete-
oric bodies which pass through them
with some retardation of speed. In the
course of repeated encounters this
speed is so far reduced that the meteors
cease to pass through the gaseous wan
derer altogether, and stay there. In
time large mass is ''hived'' in this
way. Then in passing near some mon
strous body, as the November group of
meteors did with Uranus, the meteoric
center is more strongly attracted than
the gaseous envelope and is gradually
drawn out of it, strung into line along
the orbit. with the slower moving
cometary mass following. This falls
more and more behind at every revolu-
ton, and finally the head overtakes it,
and from sheer inability to "keep up''
it finds itself in the lead. In q few
millions OF years. precisely, the Novem-
Der meteors will be stretched out into q
complete ring all round their orbit, and
then we shall run through it every
year, as we now do through those of
August, and then we shall have no
more such sights as that Of 1888 or
1867, for the string will be too scat
tered to make them. It is not improb-
able that the "Zodiacal Light is q
ring of meteoric matter circling the
sun. The observations of MIR. Jones,
the chaplain of Commodore Perry's ex-
petition to Japan. tend strongly to this
theory. It is quite evident that the
earth is constantly moving through
fgreat swarms of meteors, and every
year or two, as well as at longer inter-
walls. plows her way through currents
still more crowded. Indianapolis
Journal.
A POOR music-teacher without pupils
was recently stopped on the banks Of
the Seine, in Paris, just as she was