Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1909-11-13
star SHOWERS.
Beautiful Display Is Now
In Progress,
Not As Brilliant This Year As
Formerly.
Brief History Of the Phenomena..-
AFeW Theories.

schedule of events. Inere is secular
: change in the period of this particular
display a slow movement along the cal
endar, but it is only in the progress of
many years that the alteration of the
measured by a single night. Last years
display fixes the date for this year and
for many years to come.
The November meteors will scarcely be
at their best this year. In fact, the earth
cuts their orbit at perhaps its most
sparsey studded spot. This shower has
a period roughly corresponding to the
generations of human life, roughly com
puted as three to the century. The last
great display was due in 1899, but 1t was
a disappointment when compared with
former manifestations of this periodic
maximum.
This year the earth crosses the orbit
of this belt of minuscule members OF the
solar system at a point 10 years away
of the circuit of that orbit. The pros
poets, therefore. are that the display will
not approach anything like the brilliance
that from time to time has been observed.
on the other hand. the exhibition, chiefly
in the early morning hours of Nov. IA,
should far exceed the count of the wan
almost every night, silent flights of cold
incandescence.
The penultimate display was great
show in the skies. 1t was spread over
three years, the peak of it's magnificence
in 1866 "a heavy fall in 1867 and what
might be called smart shower even in
1868.
But the 1888 rain of the heavens was
most astounding. The eastern seaboard
was NOSE advantageOusly situated for
observation on the night of Nov. lib
The stars fell as fast and thick as flakes
of snow on a winter day. Prof. Olmstead
reckoned that 100000 cleaning trains We're
visible in the course of nine hours. TO
the ignorant it presaged the crack of
doom, the beginning of the rolling up OF
the heavens like a scroll.
= There yet live those who saw the rain
of fire and who describe how in every
countryside the unlearned people sought
the fields and passed the night in agony
Of fear with prayer and supplicatiOn. To
the faithful it was night OF terror, TO
those whom hope had abandoned night
of a frenzy of wild excess.
Such scenes were repeated. with varia-
tions according to the nature of the pop
ulation, all the way from Nova Scotia TO
moral fibre of the several communities
and their terror sought a religious awak-
ening, for it was in the era of the great
unrest, the period of the great unsettling
out of which arose so many religions
that fever of new faiths.
If such it was among the ignorant, far
otherwise among the learned. From the
star rain of 1888 dates the beginning Of
all intelligence of these recurring phe-
nomena. The astronomers not mad nor
undevout, but keen in their zeal to carry
on the observations to whatever end
: might come-for then they had no knowl-
edge one whit above the multitude pray
Ling i'll the Wfde reldS Win derplsn now
ings-then first found the key to the rid
die of these vistations from the. universe
beyond our worlds husk of air
TO- their trained eyes not these royng
tracery upon the dome of night Each
ball of fire followed course all it's own
Their tracks seemed aimed at every
spot In the bounding horizon. Some even
were seen to mount upward to the zenith
and beyond upon the distant vaultedslope.
. Patiently the observers laid down upon
WS%ASfble to pick it from the tangle OF
crl1e fUss embroidery of light.
4 {stn patient record did they arrive
sagreat discovery fundamental 4"
eH Upon the chart as it was deter
I'D by the well known stars athwart
N4}ch ut moved. extending each track
awkward against its direction of motion.
LIT was found that the area of general
Intersection corresponded most closely
with the point in the remoter heavens
marked by the star Zeta Leonis. The "a
diant point had been found and deimited
in space. Henceforth this November star
shower was to be known as the leonlds
the lion cubs. This was the beginning OF
the science of the shooting of the stars
and it dates from 1888, science calmly al
work in the tumult of a world turned
upside down.
The next preceding shower was of mi
tial Importance bearing upon this discoy-
cry of the radient point. In the early
morning of Nov T.. 1893. at Cumana
Il
the skies. and with his wide backward
gaze he reaches the conclusion that these
meteors observed period ana tnaI 'le
study of the records of the past could be
made to discover the length of the perlod.
Three times in every century the Novein.
Der skies have set the stage for the great
pyrotechnics of the heavens.
great display was recorded Wlleil
Ibrahim, the second of the Aglabids, lay
dying before CosenZa and awaiting the
coming of shetan to take him, to the
punishment of his many cruel deeus'
rent of meteors. brought terror TO the
faithful of one faith whose monarch lay
dying. terror to the faithful of an older
faith covering behind their city walls.
This was the night of Oct. 10. 9o2. FROM
this date it is easy to reckon the SLOW
periodic change; the node advances l4ta
degrees in 1000 years. That was 1917
A second thousand years backward into
the bounds the history of the lions cubs
as the world knows history Leverier mas
II computed that it was no longer ago tnah
l26 b. G.. that Uranus exercised its mighty
attraction upon comet Grant through
outer space, chained it to an elilptlcal
and recurring orbit of 33 years about the
sun and broke it into a swarm or cosmlc
Y gravel
II The word gravel is used advisably. yet
Il 1t can be no more than an estimate based
upon the brief visibility of an object
i which in its very essence can never be
come tangible and therefore ponderable.
NO smallest mass from Il peiloulC uieteoi
II shower has ever come to earth in such
Al way as to be identified beyond all per-
II adventure of doubt The astronomical
4 records afford but two instances in which
1 objects coming to earth from outer space
i might be suspected of a common origin
i with synchronous displays of meteor
i Rins.
4 Slhe former of these was a boide which
9xy~Ae to earth in France on April 4, 9Oo,
Attracting to the heavens the wondering
gaze of the people of western Europe.
j Of this hot visitant the Saxon Chronicle
/ records that one of the eye witnesses
\ east water upon it. which raised in
4 steam with a great noise of boiling
y The later instance was observed at
Mazapil in Mexico during the Andromede
A rain Of Nov q, 1885, That which was
described as a ball of fire struck the
4 gronnd and when cool was found to be a
j piece of iron weighing eight pounds and
1 containing nodues of graphite These
/ two bodies came into reach during dis
i play of shooting stars. But they lack OBJ
i servation concerning their radiant point.
u therefore there is no ground for asso-
ciating them with the simultaneous phe-
\ homenon.
II The pea size estimate is generally ac-
a certed as the measure of the components
1M or the neriOdic shower Only