The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1898-10-27
SHOOTING STARS.
scores of Tons of Them Reach the
Earth's Hemotcst COrners Daily.

from the lxOnUOn standard.
Sir Robert Bah, president Of the Royal
Astronomical Society, delivered in the
Birkheck Institute recently, The first of the
lectures arranged for the present session.
Ills subject was The Lonces of Heaven"
telling about the great showers Of shoot
ing stars that may be expected In Novem-
Der, 1898. or 1899. For a per cd Of a thou
sand years great showers of stars had
REQUIRED every lhirty-three years wtth
more or less regularity. The first that
took place in this century was on Nov.
49, 1888. An ordinary shooting star, even
though il traced out a brilliant streak
across The star-spangied vaults, was by
no means a large object meteor was
not so big as the moon. The shooting star
was less than a mountain or hill, il was
not so large as a church; Il was even
smaller than a cottage; not often were
the shooting stars SO heavy as a turnip, or
even as a potato; ana many bright
shooting star was no larger than an ordi-
nary bean; they were frequently not so
large as d pea Among the innumerable
myriads of shooting stars many We're, IN
truth, neither larger NOE heavier than the
grains OF sand on the sea shore. For
thousands of years-he believed for tens
or hundreds of thousands of years-the
little meteor had been hurrying through
space with that extraordinary speed which
utterly transcribed any velocity that
could be produced on earth. The earth
was bomharded by shooting stars, day and
night, year in and year out, by hundreds
of thousands of them, which, though smaI
possessed extraordinary power for doing
mischief. If the meteors were noI arrest
ed in their frenzied Hight and rendered
perfectly harmless, he could not tell what
the result would be. They were often ex-
actly in the lire of fire of the great No
vember shower, and the very fury with
which these lances of heaven Tried 10 get
a us was the source Of our salvation, The
speed of their flight was so preposterous
that the shooting star became transformed
into streak of harmless and beautiful va
Dor. On the most moderate compute ton,
scores of tons of meteoric matter were add
ed each day 10 the previous mass of the
earth. Since the Queen came to the throne
the earth had acquired not less than half.
a million tons of additional matter, which
had been gathering from the depths of
space, No one could tell where this mat
ter was not to be found. on lofty Alpine
submits, amid the eternal SHOWS, whose
purity had never been sullied by smoke
from furnaces, minute particles were
found, bearing evidence of having been
fused by intense heat. Such particles We're
the poor residues of glorious shooting stars
which had originated In comets Amid the
ooze that came up from the bottom OF
the atlantic were many little particles
which had merely exchanged their posi-
ton from the depths of space TO the
depths of ocean. For they We're the spols
of the shooting sAars. which had dropped
into the sea. The mofes Which fioated
so beautifully IN the sunbeam frequently
comprised heavenly contr buttons The
burrows turned over by the pillow of the
husbandman contained no insignificant
proportion of material which in The lapse
of illimitable ages of geological time had
been gathered in from the tails of mighty
comets. Grains of corn owed something
10 the gentle rains of a more familiar de-
scription. The loaf as il came to the ia
Bile contained within Il particles which
had voyaged for uncOunted thousands of
centuries of time through illimitable mill
lions of miles Of space. Thus 70 provide
the actual material of our bodily frame
the remotest realms of space had been
laid under contribution. The life of every
one present was at that moment la inti-
mate association with particles that had
been brought thither by shooting stars
These wonders of the shooting stars did
bur lead them to think of those fine words
of Ruskin: at is but the outer hem OF
Gods great mantle our poor stars do
gem" Tho lecture was illustrated by lam
tern pictures.