Omaha daily bee., 1899-11-08
BoMpARpMnNr is PERPETUAL.
Millions of Iron md stone Missiles
MnrIcl Mnfhnr Enrih


A thin stratum of air. an invisible armor
OF great tenuity, lies between man and the
menace OF possible annihilation, says the
Popular Science Monthly The regions Of
space beyond our planet are filled with
flying fragments. Some meet the earth on
It's onward rush; others, having attained
inconcevable velocity, overtake and crash
into the whirling sphere with loud detona-
tion and ominous glare, finding destruction
in its molecular armor, or perhaps ricochet-
Ing from II again into the unknown. Some
come singly, vagrant fragments from the
infnity of space; others fall in showers like
golden rain; all constituting a bombardment
appalling in its magnitude. 1t has been es-
timated that every twenty-fo hours the
earth or it's atmosphere is struck by 400, ,000,
900 missiles Of iron or stone, ranging from an
ounce up to tons in weight. Every month
there rushes upon the flying globe at least
10000, 900 iron and stone fragments
which, with lurid accompaniment, crash into
the circumambient atmosphere. Owing to
the resistance offered by the air few OF
these solid shots strike the earth They
move out of space with a possible velocity
of thirty or forty miles per second and like
moths, plunge into the revolving globe. lured
to their destruction by its fatal attraction.
The moment they enter our atmosphere they
ignite; the air is piled up and compressed
ahead of them with inconcevable force, the
resultant friction producing an immediate
rise OF temperature, and the shooting star,
the meteor of popular parlance, is the re-
suit.
Meteortes vary in size from minute OBJ
jects not larger than pear to masses OF
iron OF enormous size. The Chupaderos
meteorite, which fell in Chihuahua, Mexico,
weighs twenty-five tons. Another, which
fell in Kansas broke into myrads of pieces,
the sections found weighing 1900 pounds.
A meteorite in the Vienna museum, which
fell in Hungary, weighs 647 pounds while
the Cranbourne meteorite in the British
museum weighs four tons. The Red river
meteorte in the Yale museum weighs 1880
pounds The largest meteorite known was
discovered within the Arctic circle by Lieu
tenant Peary. The Eskimos had known OF
IT for generations as source of supply for
iron. 1t was found by Lieutenant Peary in
May 1894, but, owing to it's enormous weight
could not be removed until the summer
OF 1898 when, after much labor, it was ex-
cavated and hoisted into the hold of the
steam whaling bark Hope and carried to
New York, where it has found resting place
in the cabinet of the American Museum of
Natural History. 1t is believed to weigh
about 100 tons.
Up to 1772 the stories of bodies falling
from space were not entertained seriously by
scientific men. So eminent a scientist as
Lavoisier, after thoroughly investigating a
case, decided that it was merely a stone
which had been struck by lightning Falls
finally occurred which demonstrated beyond
dispute that the missiles came from space
and science recognized the fact that the
earth was literally being bombarded and
that human safety was due to the atmo
spheric armor, scarcely 100 miles thick, that
enveloped the earth. One of the most re-