Kentucky Irish American. (Louisville, Ky.) 1898-1968, 1898-11-05
Watch for the Most Dazzling
Display of Fireworks i'm the
Sky Since 1866.
The Coming Two Vast Showers
of Falling Stars Only Two
Weeks Apart.
AIR PROTECTS US FROM METEORS

Two great meteor showers in single
month, and only two weeks apart, consti-
tute rare event in astronomical annals.
Such an event is due to occur in Noyem-
Der, says Garrett P. Serviss.
One of the expected showers will re-
suit from the first on-rush Of the advanc-
ing columns of the great Leonid meteors,
which envelop the earth in fiery spectacles
once in every thirty-three and a quarter
years, or three times in century. The
main mass of these meteors is due in
November, 1899, but, since their array
extends over a length of at least two
thousand million miles, they require not
less than three years to pass the place
where their orbit intersects that of the
earth.
Accordingly, astronomers are confident
that their leading files will be streaming,
in hundreds of thousands, across the
point of intersection when our globe ar
rives there about November 10, this year.
The tocsn of science has been sounded,
star-maps and directions to observers
have been scattered broadcast, the latest
improvements in photography have been
enlisted in the service, aud the astronomi-
cal world is on the qui vive for the ex-
pected encounter.
The other great shower occurs on the
night of November 81, and will be caused
by the meeting of the earth with the
meteors known as the Andromedes, or
Bielids, which are closely related to the
famous missing comet of Biela, If they
are not, in fact, scattered debris OF that
comet itself. These meteors were last
seen in a great shower in 1885, when
huge ball of blazing iron dropped out
of the SKY w11iie It was flied with their
dazzling trains and buried itself i'll the
earth near Mazapil in Mexico. The
meteor, or piece of smashed comet, is
now in neurological museum i'll Eu-
rope, and the man who finds another like
it, after the shower next month, will
possess a treasure for which the scientific
world will envy him.
The average person who goes out on the
nights of November 13 and IA, and again
on November 81 and looks serenely up at
the sky with its flying sparks-if he is
fortunate enough to see them-will have
no idea in how simple manner he is
protected from a great danger. If he did
have the idea an element of fear and
dread might tend to upset his equanimity.
Only the transparent air protects us
against death from meteors. What the
effect of a small meteor striking a human
body with undiminished velocity would
be we can only guess. A Mauser bullet,
travelling say 1000 feet in a second, when
it enters the brain cavity, or any of the
water-charged tissues Of the body, pro-
duces explosive effects that make even
army surgeons recoil aghast.
But meteor's velocity at the instant 1t
strikes the atmosphere is from $4,000 to
$50, 900 feet per second Would it blow
man to pieces as if can of nitro-gly-
cerine had been exploded against his
breast? Or would it incinerate him like a
stroke of lightning, even as it is itself in
CELEBRATED by the more than furnace heat
of its rush through the air1 However we
may answer these questions, there re-
mains plentiful food for thought in the
spectacle of thousands of such missiles
burning themselves into harmless puffs
of gas few miles above our heads.
And, what makes the whole question
more interesting, occasionally the shield
of the atmospere proves insufficient, and
the earth's armor is penetrated by a
meteor of more than ordinary size and
density. This is what happened at MAJ
apil during the shower of the Andromedes
in 1885, and it may happen again next
month.
The Mazapil meteor, composed mostly
of iron, buried itself two or three feet in
the hard soil, and was dug out, yet glow
ing with heat, by persons who had seen il
, fall. If similar meteor should fall in
New York city, notwithstanding the los:
of velocity it would suffer in passing
through a hundred miles or so of air. il
would penetrate the stoutest roof or wall
: and if as large as some others that have
been known to reach the earth, it would
demolish twenty-story building more
/ effectively than a whole broadside o.
thirteen-inch shells could do it.
: The adventures of the two great troops
of meteors which are now rushing
: rapidly toward the earth have been va
! ried and startling, and the future ma,
have still more remarkable thingsin stor,
for them and for us. The Leonids thu
called because they appear to radiat
c from the constellation Leo) hold, like tn,
: Andromedes, close relation with come
E which is travelling in the same track
t Every time they meet the earth they suf
: fer violent perturbations.
a Beside the millions which are consumes
I with fire in the air, other millions AM
billions are whirled into new paths AM