Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1900-01-11
THE LEONlD FIASCO.
Why the Little Children of the Sky
Failed TO Show.

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 celestial display
/ that did not come OFF. The astrono-
merS must frankly concede that as Il
spectacle the affair was total failure
and that ms veritication of their pre-
| diCtions ii was very far from satistat-
tory.
Ii is true that a good many meteors
We're seen between Nov. Is and l6. of
which large proportion-mor than
one -half-were Leonids, and had 1t 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 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 1883.
At present the only chance for any
thing like a satisfactory verihcation
of the prediction lies in the slender
| possibility that the earth's encounter
with the meteoric swarm may have oc-
Cured at time when the resulting
shower" could be seen only in the Pa
cific ocean, from which we have as ye,
no decisive news 1t is barely possible
that we may yet hear of such 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 (rcjecting
as mere carnard the sensational
story Of frightened peasants in Rus
sia) there was nowhere observed any
thing that could 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
carefully stated in the scientific pub
LEGATION of the predictions, but was
hardly sufficiently emphasized in the
popular summaries. rhe problem Is
! difficult enough when one has to do
with the perturbations Of a comet NOV
ing in an orbit like that of the LeOn0-
dis, but the difficulty is enormously en-
HANGED when we are dealing with
dsorderly procession more than a
thousand mics long, composed nj lit
tie meteoroids which travel in irregu
lar streams and groups, with strag-
glers before, behind and all around,
and with the great planets Jupiter and
=" lturn 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-
GREETED that the calculations proved to
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. 1t
seems rather probable that the compu-
! tation may have been all right so far
as concerns the date at which the
earth shc'lld 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 II probable that at the
nearest approach to the line Of the me
teoric orbit she would still be outside
of the principal stream; but 1t was
supposed that the meteors for 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 81 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 straggIers which
are scattered along the whole line Of
march.
A thnl explanation, urged with con-
Gtdera HE fprfe hy Professor " II