Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1910-08-04
THE AUGUST SKIES
(From the New York Globe.)

|
once. in the vast, unwritten chron-
icle Of celestial evolution. how many
thousands Of millions of years ago
we cannot tell. mighty cloud Of dis
Greet but solid particles was slowly
drifting through interstellar space.
| How many millions of years these
gathered particles had wandered. from
what far depths Of the universe they
had come, we cannot know; but that
they were in motion we certainly
know. for without motion they must
have fallen inward to ward common
centre and collected themselves into
a solid body. In the course Of this
movement, when they were more than
three thousand million miles away.
they came near the sun that his at
traction was sufficient to overcome
the momentum which would have car
ried them by, and the whole swarm
settled down toward the sun. Down
they went, the vanguard and then tho
rear. steadily falling for more than
! fifty years with ever-increasing
speed, past and around the sun, and
then, by force of the momentum
gained during their long fail. back to
mingled with the still arriving par
ticles of the slow-moving and tre-
mendous cloud. so the van and rear
were mingled. and the cloud became
an endless procession of flying par
ticles, extending all the way to a
point below the sun more than three
thousand million miles and an ascend
ing stream reached back to the point
Of beginning. In Its passage this
stream of flying particles crosses the
circular path on which the earth Is
making It's unending journey about
the sun. Once each year the earth en-
counters this stream, so wide that for
q month our planet Is ploughing its
way through the storm Of missiles
while moving onward at the rate OF a
thousand miles a minute. Fortunately,
the separate missiles are small and. as
each enters the upper air at the rate
OF two-score miles a second, the tre-
mendous heat generated by friction
with the atmosphere causes 1t to flash
into incandescence as II turns into
gas and dust harmlessly mingles with
the atmosphere. and in the course Of
time. settles to the earth.
About the 10th OF August the earth
passes through the thickest OF the
stream which we have been describ-
ing. and on the evening of that day,
as we'll a. several days before and af-
er. the August meteoritcs may be seen
flashing along the sky. All those be-
longing to this particular stream can
be identified by the fact that their
courses traced backward, converge at
a point in tho sky which lies within
the constellation of Parseus. All we
need to do Is to sit whore we can see
a moderate expense OF sky, and with
our attention reasonably fixed observe
the meteors as they come along. 1t Is
easy to watch and think or talk about
something else at the same time. In
this day tedium Is avoided and there
is an absolute certainty that patience
will be rewarded In some years the
display Is much better than others,
but always the Perseids are to be seen
any evening from the 7th to the 18TH
inclusive.
The constellation Perseus, to which
allusion has been made, may DO seen
rising In the northeast. 1t lies in the
Milky Way and may ut once he iden-
titled by bending row OF three
[ OTlknt STARS, inc DIISHtest, DO
, ing in the middle. Mirfac Is also al
tho end Of another ana greatly longer
row OF four bright stars. which
stretches away to the south and east ant
ends in the corner of the Great Square
, OF Pegasus. Below this line Of stars
and forming a right-angled triangle
with Mirfac and Almaak. the SECOND
star OF the row, is the wonderful. var
liable star Agol which at regular in
tervals sinks from the second to the
l fourth magnitude OF brightness. The
!. fourth star In the long row from Mir
r fac In the corner of the Great Square
OF Pegasus. Ia named Alpharez, ant
3 belongs, like the others of the row
{ Except Mirfac) to the constellation
Andromsda. The Square. on accoun
OF Its great size. IL frequently diffi