Morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven [Conn.]) 1848-1894, 1892-11-12
THE NOVEMBER METEORs.
They Are Due Sunday Night and MOI
ilaY M0rnin1.

They Are Due Sunday Night and Mon |
day Morning.
Frank A. Hill says in Boston Congrega-
tionalist: If one will watch the heavens
Sunday evening, or, better, during the
small hours of Monday morning, he will
doubtless see shooting stars in larger
number than usual. They are the so-called
November meteors. They seem to come
from the constellation Leo, beautiful
group Of stars of which six are SO disposed
as to look like a sickle. It is from the re-
gion that the bend of the sickle half in
| closes that the meteors seem to issue.
Once in thirty-three years they pour forth
from this space in amazing numbers, "a
dating like the whalebones of an umbrel-
Ia and resembling rich, fiery spray shot
forth from some celestial fountain. I re-
call how looked for this shower on the
bright November night in 1886, and how,
weary with watching, drew my bed up
to the window so that might lie down
and keep my vigil. It was costly in
diligence. fell asleep, and 80 lost one of
the two chances of lifetime. subse-
quently consoled myself with the reflection
that the "grapes were souri," for 1t was
Europe, Asia and Africa that faced the
shower that night and received the most
brilliant part of it.
The first thing to say about these shoot
ing stars is that they are not stars at all.
The real stars are unquestiouably NOV
ing, and that, too, with velocities 1ncon-
ceivably great, but such ia their enormous
distance from US that it takes the incest
observations through long series of
years to detect the minutest changes
of position. So we call them "fxed," al
though they are really shooting like mad:
that the meteor lights its lamps when sew
enty or eighty miles above the earth, car
ries it as far in second as an accommoda-
ton train goes in an hour and, after rush
toward the earth, quietly puts it out.
Nor is the star q falling world. It il
simply grain of dust or pebble at the
: most. It is true there are large masses
|: that enter our air from time to time, shine
: | with dazzling brilliancy aud finally bury
,, themselves in the earth, or they explode
with great violence and rain down pieces
that distribute themselves over a county
I once saw meteor by night whose first
effect upon me was that of the full moor
tumbling and bursting, and at another
| Clmo IL WAS My BOou loTtuAo u
observe freball by day tina
, made me think, before I recovered
> myself, that the sun was darting athwar
. the sky. But the ordinary shooting sta
that resembles skyrocket is undoubtedl.
tiny thing that, in outer space, is darl
! and icy cold. By friction with the air it i
l heated white hot and dissipated into dus
or into glowing gases that subsequent.
. cool into dust. The long train is du
y usually to the persistence of vision, a
as when one sees the curves of swirlin
firebrand, and yet at times it lasts y
. long that one is much perplexed to accoun
. for it.
There ia no doubt that some of tn
notes that dance in the sunbeam are from
;. these shooting stars. 1t is dust that come
3 to us from without-the dust of othe
worlds, it may be-and SO it is describe
in the books as cosmic dust or dust of tn
universe.