Northern Wisconsin advertiser. [volume] (Wabeno, Wis.) 1898-1925, 1900-01-11
THE LEoNID FIASCo.
Why the Little Children of the Sky
Failed to Show.

man said the other day, astronomy
is on its defense" The public want to
know why they were humbugged into
saying up through the wee. sma
hours" and watching the skies for sew
eral nights to see a celestial display
that did not come off. The astrono-
mers must frankly concede that as a
spectacle the affair was total failure,
and that as verification of their pre-
dictions it was very far from satisfac-
tory
1t is true that good many meteors
were seen between Nov 13 and 16. of
which large proportion-more than
one-half-were Leonids, and had it not
been for the overpowering moonlight,
at least ten times as many would have
been visible; for, under the circum-
stances, only the brilliant meteors
could be seen, and the fainter ones are
always vastly more numerous. If the
sky had been clear and moonless the
twenty or thirty which were actually
observed at favorable stations on the
morning of the 10th would have be-
come a respectable multitude, to be
counted by the hundred. But even
then the number would have been no
greater than was observed last year,
and not at all to be compared with the
thousands that scanned the sky in 1866
and 1867, to say nothing of the mil
lions that crowded the heavens in 1888.
At present the only chance for any
thing like satisfactory verification
of the prediction lies in the slender
possibility that the earth's encounter
with the meteoric swarm may have oc-
shower" could be seen only in the Pa
cific ocean, from which we have as We,
no decisive news. : II is barely possible
that we may yet hear of such a dis
play from the Sandwich Islands or
from some of the Pacific liners. So
far, however, as can be judged from
the reports thus far received from all
portions of this continent, from China
and India, and from Europe (rejecting
as a mere carnard the sensational
story of frightened peasants in Rus
sia) there was nowhere observed any
thing that coule be considered as a
fulfillment of the predictions.
AS to the reasons for this failure
several explanations are possible, but
which is the true one cannot at pres
ent be easily determined. In the first
place, however, it is only fair to say
that the predictions were by no means
so positive and definite as the public
generally supposed from the newspa-
per statements. The data on which
the calculations are necessarily based
are so uncertain, as the astronomical
computers perfectly understood, that
the results of "ciphering," however
accurately carried out, are inevitably
subject to large errors; this fact was
LEGATION of the predictions, but was
hardly sufficiently emphasized in the
popular summaries. The problem is
difficult enough when one has to do
with the perturbations Of a comet NOV
ing in an orbit like that of the Leono-
dis, but the difficulty is enormously en-
HANGED when we are dealing with a
disorderly procession more than a
thousand miles long, composed or lit
tie meteoroids which travel in irregu
lar streams and groups, with stray
glers before, behind and all around,
and with the great planets Jupiter and
Saturn disturbing them for thirty
years-to say nothing Of the confusion
and havoc produced by the earth her
self in 1867. While it is to be re-
be erroneous by an amount which
caused the failure of the prediction
founded upon it, it is nothing to won
der at
All things considered, however. Ii
seems rather probable that the compu-
tation may have been all right so far
as concerns the date at which the
earth should cross the meteor track,
and that the failure to encounter the
meteors was due to a shift of their
orbit upward or downward, converting
the former grade crossing" into a
crossing overhead or underneath, and
making actual collision impossible.
Indeed, the calculations of Stoney and
Downing indicated something of the
sort, making it probable that at the
nearest approach to the line of the me-
teoric orbit she would still be outside
of the principal stream; but ii was
supposed that the meteors for a con-
siderable distance on each side of the
center would be at least as numerous
as those we encountered in 1867
Another possible explanation is
based on the fact, now pretty well as
certained, that the meteors move NOT
in continuous flock, but something
like an army on the march, travelling
on several nearly parallel roads. and
organized in divisions, brigades and
regiments, so to speak. This year the
earth may have cut through between
two of the roads, or between two bril-
gades, and so have failed TO strike any
considerable mass of the enemy. meet
ing only some of the stragglers which
are scattered along the whole line of
march.
A third explanation, urged with con-
siderable force by Professor w. III.
Pickering, the younger brother OF the
director Of the Harvard observatory