The Billings gazette. [volume] (Billings, Mont.) 1896-1919, 1902-11-14
LEON|D|S DUE
THIS MONTH
METEORIc SHOWER PREDICTER
TO OCCUR IN NOVEMBER.
NOT ALWAYS KEPT
1t 1t Does Not Show Up This Year
the Great Shower Is No
Longer Expected.

According to- Frederick Campbell,
of the department of astronomy in
the Brooklyn institute, the great event
for November is the meteoric shower
known as that Of the Leonids-pro-
vided it wills only materialize. 1t was
looked for in 1899, with great conf
dence, but only a few meteors were
seen. Then men said that there was
a slight miscalculation, and we should
see them in 1900; but the case proved
about as bad that year. The more
hopeful argued that the miscalculation
was greater than had been supposed
and urged that we be on the lookout
in 1901. We were, and from one To-
cality and another came reports that
quite a number of meteors had been
observed, two or three hundred being
seen from single points; still there
was no such downpour as had been
expected. And now some are saying
that 1902 is the year and that we must
sit up several nights to witness the
great spectacle which so excited the
people in 1888 and 1866. Hope long
deferred maketh the heart sick" We
have certainly gone far beyond the
limit of the thirty-three year period
which was supposed to prevail, and
it may therefore be with something
Of skepticism that we peer from our
windows on the appropriate dates.
If the LeOnids do not turn up in
goodly numbers this year we may as
we'll conclude that the great shower
is no longer to be expected, at least
for a generation. What became of
the Leonids? We speak about the
exactness of astronomical science,
about celestial events being accu-
rately predicted to the very minute
and second. The exact course Of
of the meteoric stream had been
marked out; it vas eliptical in form,
with the sun at one of it's two foci;
it reached out beyond the orbit of
the planet Uranus; it was even de-
clared that the meteors had been in
trOduced into our solar system by
the attraction of Uranus, as they
were one day passing, no one knows
whence or whittier, and the very year
in which this happened had been cal
culated as being A. D. 1876; while the
meteors were said to be more or less
strung out all around the eliptical
orbit, they were declared to be par
ticularly crowded together in one
mass, and, the time of a complete
revolution having been figured at
about thirty-three years, and our earth
cutting into their orbit annually, it
was confidently stated that a great
shower might be expected once in
about thirty-three years.
But, when the time table indicates
the arrival of a train and it does not
come, the question is, what has be-
come of it? Doubtless most of the
above teachings concerning the No
yember meteOrs are correct. Why
then have we not plunged into that
great swarm? Some say that, owing
to its passing as near the great planet
Jupiter, on it's way hither, it was di-
verified from it's path and made to
take up a new course, even as origi-
nally it was diverted from another
path and brought into our system.
But another thing needs to be thought
of. No matter how a par
tlcular swarm of meteors may be,
it is not infinite in numbers; material
things all have their limits; of those
meteors there were originally just so
many n no more Each year our
earth runs into their path and meets
the meteors going in the opposite
direction. Every one that it meets
it captures and destroys; for every
meteor that flashes in the sky is a
nugget of matter on fire, swiftly dis
sipated into gas and dispelled in our
atmosphere. We are being peppered
by these every day, millions shower
ing upon us Unseen every twenty-four
hours; some of them are no larger
than shot; but, if we did not enjoy
the protection of our atmosphere,
which arrests and destroys them, we
should be shot to death, and the en-
tire human ace would be speedily de-
This constant fusilade must
be endured directly upon the surface
OF the moon, because of it's having
practically no atmosphere. Hencec
there would be no life upon the moon.