The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1898-11-24
TONS OF SHOOTING STARS.
Land Upon the Earth Daily, Says a
Noted English AstrOn-


Noted English AstrOn-
Omer.
Sir Robert Ball, president of the
Royal Astr )ECmical society, delivered
in the Birkl eek institute recently the
| first of the lectures arranged for the
present season. His subject was The
| Lances of Heaven" telling about the
great showers of shooting stars that
may be expected in November, 1898, or
| 1899 For a period of a thousand years
great showers of stars had required
every 80 years with more or less regu-
| larity. The first that took place in this
country was On November 10, 1888. An
ordinary shoe ting star, even though it
| traced out d brilliant streak across the
star-spangled vaults, was by no means
a large object. A meteor was not SO
| big as the moon. The shooting star
was less than a mountain or a hill;
| it was even smaller than a cottage; not
often were the shooting stars so heavy
as turnip, or even as potato; and
many a bright shooting star was no
larger than an ordinary bean; they
NClC MI 81 re DIS ii ped
Among the innum srable myriads of
shooting stars many were. in truth,
neither larger nor heavier than the
grains of sand on the seashore. For
thousands O. years he believed for
| tens or hundreds OF thousands of years
the little meteor had been hurrving
through space with that extraordinary
/ -, I
velocity that could be produced on
earth. The earth was bombarded by
| shooting stars, day and night. year in
and year out, Fy hundreds of thousands
of m,wh;ch, though small. possessed
extraordinary power for doing mis-
chief. If the meteors were not arrested
| in their frerzied tight and rendered
perfectly harmless he could not tell
what the result would be. They were
often exactly in the !ine of fire of the
| great November shower, and the very
| fury with which these lances of heaven
| tried to get a us was the source of our
salvation. 7 he speed of their fight
was so preposterous that the shooting
| star became transformed into streak
of harmless tnd beautiful vapor. On
| the most moderate computation, scores
of tons of meteoric ma tier were added
each day to the previous mass of the
earth. Since the queen came to the
throne the earth had acquired not less
| than half a 1nilliOa tons Of additional
matter which had been gathering from
| the depths OF space, No one could tell
where this matter was not to be found
On lofty Alpine SUBMITS. amid the eter-
nal SHOWS, whose purity had never been
sullied by smoke from furnaces minute
| particles were found. hearing 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 DO
sition from the depths of space to the
depths of ocean. For they were the
| spells of the shooting stars which had
dropped into the sea The notes which
| f1oated so beautifully in the sunbeam
| frequently comprised heavenly contri-
buttons. The burrows turned over by
| the pillow of The huehandman contained
no insignificant proportion of materials
which in tn lapse of illimitable ages
| of geological time haa been gathered in
from the tails of mighty comets. Grains
of corn owed something to the gentle
rain of meteoric matter. as well as to
the gentle rains of more familiar de-
scription. The loaf as it came to the
table contai"ed within it particles
which had voyaged Tor uncou1ted thou
sands of centuries Of time through il
| limitable millions OF space. Thus to
| provide the actual material of our
| bodily frame the remotest realms of
| space had beer laid under contribution.
| The life of everyone present was at
| that moment in inImate association
with particles that had been brought
thither by shooting stars. These won
ders of the shooting stars did but lead
| them to think of those fine words of
| Ruskin: 1T is but the outer hem of
Gods great mantle our poor stars do
| gem. -LOndOn Standard