The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1903-07-26

the tail. The effect" says Professor |
| Cox. will be as if siieaf of light pro- |
| 5ected from The earth toward the sun
/, We can see this sheaf of lght. at lest |
! it has been given as an opinion tEat the |
! zodiacal lieht, that mysterious effulgenco !
of the horizon which has never been ex-
| planned is nothing more than this shesr |
of light
The zodiacal light. says Newcomb's
Popular Astronomy. consists of a soft,
| faint column of light which may be een
rising from the western horizon after
| twilight on any clear winter or spring
| evening. Ii may also be seen rising from
| the eastern horizon just before daybreak
in the summer or autumn.
Is the zodiacal light merely the earths |
! fiery tail made visible the inhabitants
! thereof? Ii might we'll be fer the lumin-
! essence would be visible only at night and |
! the peculiar position of The sheaf would |
| permit it TO be viewed by the people on |
earth only just after shutdown or just be |
| fore sunrise. if at all. But this is not all |
Professor Newcomb says in his book of |
astronomy:
J Another mysterious phenomenon asso- |
| ciated with the zodiacal light is the Geg- |
]
of the heavens directly opposite the sun |
there is eIliptical patch of light few !
degrees in extent of such extreme faint
ness that ii can be seen only by the most |
sensitive eyes. unoer the best conditions, |
! through the clearest atmosphere. This /
| phenomenon seems so difficult 10 account |
| for that its existence is sometimes dou |
bled. yet the testimony in its favor is /
difficult 10 set aside.
In short there is in the heavens patch |
of light which can be accounted for in no
| other way unless by the fact that ii is the |
visible evidence of the steamers which
! give the earth the semblance OF a comet. /
| 1t is in the exact position toward which |
those streamers would point. j. e., out in
the darkness away from the sun. As
Professor Cox points out. even at night !
when the sun is below the horizon, faint
reflections should reach us from the
streamers behind the earth. and ny an eff J.
feet of perspective these should have a
maximum in he point opposite TO the sun.
where they will appear the most dense"
What would affect the earth would ma
turally affect all planets with dense at
mospheres. II does not affect the moon
as ii does the earth for this reason The
moon has no atmosphere. The discovery
Of radium and the corpuscular theory
seem TO prove the origin of the aurora
borealis according TO the IDEAS of Arr
henius. This is, that the aurora is moth
ing more than Roeatgen rays on a huge
scale. induced by the rain of corpuscles
on the earth
The earth is surrounded Dy lines of mag
netc force. If you lay a bar magnet on
sheet of paper on which a quantity Of
iron filings has been placed and then tap
the paper, the filings will soon arrange
themselves into lines having a specified
direction. Lines will start from one pole
OF the magnet, and after extending out
over the paper in a semi-circle will turn
in toward the other pole on both sides of
the magnet. Magnetic lines of force are
thought by scientists to start out from
the north pole of the earth. and after
reaching high above the earth TO circle
around and come down again TO the south
pole. Where these lines cross the equator
they are so high above the earth that the
air in their neighborhood is very rare
When the corpuscles which flow to lis
from the sun reach these lines of force
above the equator they would if the air
were less rare become luminescene. But
the air is too rare for this. The lines of
torce defect the corpuscles. some north,
some south. toward the poles. The cor
puscles follow the lines of force winding
around them as they go like spirais, until
they reach the polar regions where the
lines drop down to earth. Here the cor
puscles, being now in denser air. shine out
with that phosphorescence which we know
as the aurora. This theory is further
borne out by the fact that the corpuscles
are projected out from sun spots which
are turned toward the earth most during
March and September, the periods of
greatest auroras, and which are turned
slightly away from the earth during June |
and December, the periods of the auroras
Even the nebulae. those clouds of light
IN the heavens are now explained accord
ing to the corpuscuar theory Instead
of being clouds of hot gases as was here
tofore supposed the nebuIae is as cold as
empty space The light is now thought
to come from a rain OF negatively charged
particles which give rise to electric dis
charges and make the gases shine like
a vacuum tube.
Even the meteors are attributed to this
universal cause. Those particles which
miss the earth the way from the sun
shoot out into empty space. where in time
they collide with other particles These
again collide with particles from other
suns, and so the accretion goes on until
the particles have passed the size which
mere light can repel when they are over
come by the attraction Of the suns gravi-
tation and drift back TO that luminary.
Some Of these. on the way get so near
the earth that they are DETECTED by the
gravitstion Of this planet and fall toward
II. BY this time they are fairly large
masses OF matter which remain intact as
long as they are travelling above the at
mOsphere OF the earth But once a mass
falls into that atmosphere friction with
the air heats II until il is red hot. when
1t appears TO Us as shooting star. II II
is very large when II enters the atrnos-
phere there NAV be enough OF IL still left
after IL has reached the ground TO put
in in a museum and label meteorite.
But none n the various effects OF the
discovery ~ rsdium compares with what
seems almost certain proof that ne are
living on a comet. OF course the earth q
not r comet in the sense that many other ,
heavenly bodies are comets. for comets
OF actual FIRE most certainly exist and
with their tails are Of such = nature that ,
no human being could live on or near :