Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1909-11-09

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April 4. 905, a shower of Lyraids sim
ultaneously attracting to the heaven:
the wondering gaze Of the people o.
western Europe. or this hot visitan
the Saxon chronicle records that ont
of the eye witnesses cast water upor
1t, which was raised in steam with 6
great noise Of boiling"
The later instance was observed a
Mazapil in Mexico during the Andro-
mede rain Of November q, 1885. THAI
which was described as a ball Of fire
struck the ground and when cool was
found to be a piece Of iron weighing
eight pounds and containing nodules
of graphite. These two bodies came
into reach during a display of shooting
stars. But they lack observation con-
cerning their radiant point therefore
there is no ground for associating them
with the simultaneous phenomenon.
The pea size estimate Is generally
accepted as the measure Of the COM
ponents Of the periodic shower meteors
Only slightly larger Is the estimate
made by Dr. Johnstone Stoney in his
address to the British association upon
the Leonids Of 1866.
"The meteors themselves" he said
ARE probably little pebbles, the larger
about an ounce, or perhaps two ounces
in weight and spaced in the densest
part of the swarm at intervals Of one
or two miles asunder every way. The
thickness of the stream Is about 100,-
600 miles, which however is a mere
nothing compared with its enormous
length. The width Is such that the
earth when it passes obliquely through
the stream Is exposed to the downpour
of meteors for about five hours"
For the Leonid stream Miss Clerke
employs a bijou simile-"a ring with
gem on it." The ring is the long
ellipse in which the shower revolves,
now close enough to the sun to per-
init the earth to cross it's orbit, again
swinging far out beyond Uranus to
the limit Of planetary space. yet never
quite losing It's obedience to the suns
reclaiming pull.
Along this long ellipse Is spotted a
chain Of this cosmic gravel, enough to
mark the presence every November
night when the earth ploughs us
through the orbit. The gem, a brilliant
indeed, was the great central agglome-
ration Of the mass which yielded such
a terrifying rain in 1888. such a flash
ing display in 1866, the persistins rem
nant Of the disintegrating comet gone
into gravel along It's orbit.
That Is the explanation now offered
for these calendar displays, now gen.
orally accepted. Astronomy has COM
puted the elements Of each meteoric
shower as 1t recurs. All Of them have
been found to obey the rules which gov
ern the comets Of known periods,
those which have been proved to have
elliptical orbits, and thus are chained
from their first wild flights into regu-
lar, though erratic, members Of the
solar system. In this theory the me-
teor nucleus represents the disintegra-
ton form Of comet, possibly once as
brilliant an object as Halley's comet
now speeding into view.
At intervals along It's orbit each COM
ct runs the risk Of several collisions,
both on it's outward voyage into space
and upon its return, to be a spectacle
in our heavens. 1t Is merely matter
Of the mathematics Of orbital revolu-
tion Of two bodies obeying in different
order the same central impulse.
Sooner or later, reckoned in cycles
Of long ages. the two are destined to
struggle for the occupancy Of the same
spot at the same time. 1t Is the comet
which bears the brunt; the earther
pots come not back from the cisterr
where the iron pot is filling. The COM
ct has been shattered and the meteor
shower Is its survival. The earth has
been seen to tear through such mass
as a comet may be considered to pos
sess; it has been seen to disrupt it.
At first in the early existence Of this
degradation phase the disintegrated
cometary nucleus Is the brilliant on
the ring: at the time appointed for the
comet the rain Of meteors shows some
few of it's fragments flashing into fitful
brilliance at the outer envelope Of our
atmosphere. But each pebble that
once was a comet is a tiny unit of the
system; it must obey the fundamental
law Of revolution; even as the greatest
Of the planets it is subject in its min
uteness to the laws of perturbation
acting counter to velocity along the
orbit means a drag.
Inevitably the drag dots the orbit
with laggard pebbles; in slow lapse OF
long time the brilliant creates the ring
in which it is set. AS time goes longer
on the ring becomes first complete
then more evenly spaced, until at last
the brilliant vanishes, the setting has
absorbed the gem.
To the slow and inevitable change
is added the suddenness Of collision, a
brief accomplishment Of what would
otherwise be more slowly done. AS we
have already seen Leverrier found the
solar history of the Leonid rain to be-
gin in the capture of a comet accom-
plished by the enormous influence OF
remote Uranus in the year 126 of our
era. At that or at some later period
the parent comet was in collision with
some one of the greater planets.
Its substance was rent to pieces and
the meteor gem was set upon its orbit
In 1888 and in 1866 the earth tore
through the nucleus of the fragments
Some few it burned and destroyed by
the friction engendered in it's atmos-
phere: only a few, for the estimate OF
24O, 900 is less than the counting of the
veriest pinch Of sand.
To countless others it assigned per-
turbation, a drag destined to spread
them evenly along the orbit. The
shower of 1899 showed the loss; it is
computed that in less than two cen
turies the gem will have vanished in
the evenly dotted ellipse. 1t has been
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