Abilene weekly reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1888-1935, 1889-01-10
WANDERERS OF THE SKY.
Curious Facts About Strange Bodies Tha



Curious Facts About Strange Bodies That
Fly Through Space.
The members of the meteorological
section of the Brooklyn Institute lis
tened to Prof. B. Hensoldt, who told
them about meteors and who illus
trated his subject with double hand
full OF shooting stars, with sections OF
the same. and with parings from me-
teorites that were exhibited under the
microscope. Among the sections was
one from the three hundred pound
specimen found in Fayette County.
Tex, on the land of Bohemian farm
er. who thought that it marked the
place where the fugitive General Santa
Anna bu-ied his treasure. Only four
hundred and thirty falls of meteors are
recorded, though on some of these &C.
casions hundreds, perhaps thousands,
of pieces fell. The earth gains in
weight thousands of tons every year
through this meteoric accretion, but
most of the meteors plunge into the
sea and are lost. 1t is indeed possible,
said Prof. Hensoldt, that the earth it
self is merely an aggregation of
meteors, gathered upon nucleus
of cosmic dust and amassed in
countless ages as the planet swept
around the sun and moved forward
with that luminary through cold and
painless oceans Of space toward some
ynQl stolr
it is that the center OF tho earth is
formed of heavier materials than the
crust, the specific gravity of minerals
and rocks that we are acquainted with
being insufficient to account for the
weight of the whole earth, and that
this core or bulk is metallic is in
dictated in the fact that eruptive rocks
thrown up contain metal, the basalt of
Disko, off the coast of Greenland,
Astounding in masses of pure iron. The
Oldest known meteor is one that was
found on a prehistoric altar erected by
Indians in the Little Miami valley.
The weight and size of the masses
range from that of a sand grain to
blocks of metal 800 pounds in weight.
One that fell in Africa tore up the soil
for a mile. Stone is seldom found in
meteorites, and out of all that have
been discovered not more than twenty
contain no iron. The fall through an in
creasingly dense atmosphere, that may
extend anywhere from four to four hun
dred miles around the earth, develops
friction that heats the surface of the
meteor red hot, but this heat is devel-
oped so quickly that the interior is not
affected. Some that were broken open
directly after alighting were too hot to
touch externally. while at the center
they were ice cold with the external
night and chill of space. In one speci-
men found in Germany there are in
closures of quartz containing cells
partly filled with liquified carbonic acid,
with bubbles in them that ceaselessly
dart from side to side under the influ-
ence of varying temperature. Meteors
have been ascribed to volcanic erup-
tions on the moon by theorists who
held that they were tossed out of vol
canoes, but space is too rich in them
to make this probable, and it is more
likely that they are fragments of a
broken planet, or were elected in vio-
lent ruptures that hurled them beyond
the reach of gravitation. An Austrian
scientist gained temporary fame by
pretending to discover fossil remains
in meteorite, but, though his discov-
cries came to nothing, it is barely pos
sible that such remains, nay. that living
bacteria, may yet by found in them.
Indeed. it is not wholly impossible
that the earth may have received its
first seed of life from meteor Y.
Times.