Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1908-08-17
SAItING TnROUeH PERSEIDS
EARTH NOW IN DOMAIN OF
THE HEAVENLY HoBoEs.
Season for Shooting Stars Galore Is
at aand-Fine for Low
ing Couples.

Pull your hat down over your eyes and
| duck into the nearest doorway, for folks
are all going through the Perseids and
some may get meteor in the neck!
The earliest knowledge which mortals
| have Of this interesting little group of
| heavenly hoboes is the classic speech of
the Seeing Mount Olympus guide, who
drove the chariot of the sun for a great
many years. until he was finally forced
out OF business by automobile lines which
employ bevy of attractive young women
| to sit In the vehicles and entice the coun-
try youths to give up a dollar and listen
TO the sing-song of the professional gent
with the megaphone.
This ancient charioteer used to get of
something like this:
On your right you will see the far
famed group Of Perseids. a dear little
community of meteors and shooting stars
which float lazily toward the earth at
the rate of fifteen miles a second. The
supply of Perseids is falling of rapidly.
ana at present there are no more than
9.O0O.O00 of them which enter the earth's
atmosphere daily.
Some Smaller Ones, Also.
There are. however, 1OO.OOO.OOO smaller
ones which enter the atmosphere of the
| earth every day. but which are invisible
to the naked eye. The big boys are sup
posed to be 200 miles apart, and seem to
have nothing to do but float around in
the universe until the earth in its revolu-
tions about the sun reaches their domi-
cile and begins to gather to itself thou
sands of tons of this star dust, which in
creases the weight of this wicked world
and which retards its passage through
the air.
m ID e.
| wrong. either, for the Perseids are a
group of meteors supposed to be q part OF
the tail of the famous comet Of 1862 They
occupy a space in the heavens five mil
| lions of miles in width. and as the earth
| bores straight through them every year
at about this time the early morning
heavens in August are especially full of
shooting stars There will be a right nice
exhibition of shooting stars before mid
night every evening from now until Au-
gust %. so that couples believing that the
sight Of a shooting star entities the
watchers to kiss may satisfy their am
billions in that direction without having
to ring in lightning bugs to break the
mOnOtOny.
When Meteor Begins to Burn.
A meteor begins to burn when it is
about seventy-five miles above the earth
and continues its blazing trail for about
twenty-five miles. After that the falling
body is generally reduced to dust and
the star disappears. The light falling
ashes Of these meteors reach the earth,
as has been proved by very interesting
experiments Quantities of undisturbed
snow from the polar regions have been
examined and on filtering the water mi
mute globules Of oxide and sulphide Of
iron have been discovered. These are in
gradients which have reached the earth
without being entirely disintegrated.
The effect of the fall of meteors has
been calculated with scientific nicely. The
astronomers claim that the weight of the
earth is increased $1,000 tons a year by
this star dust, and it would take 500, OOO.-
600 years to make a deposit on the sur
face of the earth an inch in thickness.