The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1899-10-23

| ory The shooting stars gradually in
creased in numbers until sometimes
! several were seen at once. Sometimes
they swept over our heads, sometimes
| to the right, sometimes to the left, but
they all diverged from the east. As
| the night wore on the constellation of
! Leo assembled above the horizon, and
then the remarkable character of the
shower was disclosed. All the tracks
of the meteors radiated from Leo.
! Occasionally luminous trains would
linger on for many minutes after the
meteor had flashed across, but the
great majority of the trains in this
shower We're evanescent. 1t would be
impossible to say how many thousands
of meteors were seen, each one of
which was bright enough to have
ELECTED a note of admiration on any
| ordinary night"
The Showers 331l Years Apart.
This shower was best seen in Europe
in 1855, but in 1867 it was repeated and
the observers in the United States were
treated to a magnificent spectacle.
The researches of Professor Newton of
New Haven and Professor Adams of
Cambridge, England, and others, have
demonstrated that there is moving
| about the sun, as a center of attraction
a great bunch or group of metecrs.
This group takes thirty-three and one
quarter years to make a complete cir
cult. Its orbit plane is inclined to the
earth's orbit and so. related to it that
the meteor group crosses the earth's CIR
bit at that place where the earth comes
about Nov 1915. The enormous stream
has small breadth in comparison with
| its length. DR.. Storey has calculated
that If we represent the orbit of the
meteors by an eclipse whose length is
seven feet then the meteor stream will
be represented by a thread of the finest
sewing silk. about a foot and half or
two feet long, creeping along the orbit
In the heavens this eclipse has an
axis over 1,S00 millions of miles in
length. AT aphelion the meteor group
goes out beyond the orbit of the
planet Uranus: The real breadth of
the stream cannot be less than 100 600
miles, and is probably 100000 miles
In 1866 the earth took five hours to go
through, moving at the rate of about
eighteen miles a second. In 1867 when
the earth returned to the cross roads.
the meteor stream was still going by
and America. especially, had a splendid
view. Even in 1868 the stream had not
gone by completely. There are meteors
scattered all along the orbit path of
the group, but there appears to be only
one group or bunch. We, therefore
see meteQrS every year about Nov. 13-
TO-. but the grand shower comes only
when. we strike into the punched
stream. 8
The Science Sof the Showers.
The calculations of the. great French
astronomer LIE Verrier appear to indi-
cate that in 12e, A. D. the Leonids Gas
the swarm is called. because the mete-
ors seem TO sradiate from Leo) were
moving in an orderly manner around
great orbit which would take them
past the earth's orbit out almost to
Jupiter, in theirs nearest approach to
the sun, and then they would recede,
never to- be seem again in the solar
system. But I'M that year GIG A. D.
the planet Uranus was near the swarm
as they passed his orbit, and he, by the
power Of his perturbing attraction.
pulled them back and caused them to-
pursue a smaller orbit, the presentpath.
Uranus captured for the solar system
this interesting group of meteors. The
group is subject now, in it's motion
around the sun, to disturbing effects of
pulls from the other planets. Jupiter.
Saturn and the earth These pulls make
the accurate calculations difficult and
produce a little uncertainty as to- the
times of the showers. A few weeks
after the 1866 shower of Leonids. the
Astronomer Schiaparelli Of Milan pub
lished a paper on the August meteors
{a,. u