Arizona republican., 1891-10-13
A NIETEORIC MINE.
The Strange Discovery of an Ore-
 gon Man.
Some Interesting Facts Concerning Me- teors-Twenty Millions of Them Fall Upon the Earth An
 nually.

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 A handful of small meteorites was re- ceived the other day at the office of the geological survey in Washington from man out in the northeast corner of Oregon. He said that they were loose specimens from a nickel mine that he had discovered and he wanted them as- saved, because there were vast quan- titles more in the place he got them from. Mincralogist Day is under the impression that, for the first time in scientific history, a mine of meteorites has been struck.
 It is not surprising, says the Wash ington Star. that the finder should sup pose he had lighted upon surface indi- cations of nickel, after rude assay, in- asmuch as these projectiles from the heavens, though consisting mostly of iron, contain usually large percentage of the substance so commonly used as metallic veneer. The handful in ques- tion are about sixty-fve per cent iron, thirty per cent. nickel and the rest cobalt, which last is a metal somewhat resesnbsinr aickel The fsoportion of nlckei lS uuc1hnhV4l 4&xkS Aot AN teorites. a<~zs HSNS
 Dr. Day believes that the oregon man must have come upon gully, into which, under very extraordinary con ditions, a great number of meteorites had been drifted by the action of water from a vast Cspanse of hillside where they had fallen. Hailstoncs arc often similarly piled up. There is Re-lifli- culty in determining the fact that the specimens discussed are meteorites, in- asmuch as such bodies are nearly al- ways composed of just about the same materials in definite proportions, though why no one has ever been able to explain.
 Meteors are very curious things. The ordinary ones, called shooting or falling stars, mostly arc consumed be- fore they reach the earth. They take fire in passing through the atmosphere by friction with the air. On any fine night one may see an average of eight or ten of them in an hour, while practiced observer will catch sight of twice that number At intervals the earth passes through great meteor trains on its passage through space in the tremendous journey the solar sys- tenn is making toward the constellation Hercules. ia the north, and on such oc- casious the display of celestial fire works is amazing. As many as ten thousand rncteors have been observed within two hours.
 But the most interesting meteors are the big ones, naturally. One such is an event. It travcrscs the sky in flame, usually cxplodcs with a detonatiOn, and finally buries itself in the ground. Sometimes it cXplodcs before reaching the earth. The gigantic meteor known historically as L'Aigle, burst over France in 1908 and scattered its material over seven miles square. The average distance from the earth to the meteorS called shooting stars" is about sixty miles, and their rapidity of motion varies from ten t. fifty miles second The earth's rate of progress in its orbit is nineteen miles per second There is upon the earth a continuous rain of meteorites always, and it has been esti- mated that twenty million such, big enough to be called shooting stars if seen at night, fall upon this planet every twenty-four hours.
 The appearance of really big me teorite is always an event worth record ing. From time to time such mon- sters from outer space alight upon the earth and occasion a sensation. For ex- ample, on the evening of December 2, 1876, people in Kansas saw a bright ball of fire at about nine o'clock rush. ing in the western sky near where the moon was setting It grew in brilliancy as it rose, drawing everybody out of doors. Suddenly it passed overhead, dropping into the southeast and talk inr about two minutes for its passage.
 It was seen to pass by the inhabit- ---.s.~r s.vOrfsIra, Iowa, Missouri, Wis consin, Illinois, Michigan, Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. In the meteor's path, four or five minutes after it's passage, were heard loud explosions, like distant cannonading, thunder or the rattling of empty wagons over stone roads. So loud were these sounds that beasts were frightened. Over central Illinois the-f fire ball was seen to break into fragments like rocket, and over In- diana and Ohio it formed flock or clus- ter of meteors, forty miles long and five miles broad.
 Ordinarily such great mcteors as these drop stones, of which six or eight each year are big enough to find places in the museums of the world. The biggest one ever picked up is a mass of iron and nickel weighing twelve hun dred pounds.
 A Touching Record.
 A nuYinnr rp.t1rr, hoe iust hcap yr.nt