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Page 35
[Illustration: Fig. 49.--Bolides.]
[Page 121]
In 1783 Dr. Schmidt was fortunate enough to have a telescopic view
of a system of bodies which had turned into meteors. These were two
larger bodies followed by several smaller ones, going in parallel
lines till they were extinguished. They probably had been revolving
about each other as worlds and satellites before entering our
atmosphere. It is more than probable that the earth has many such
bodies, too small to be visible, revolving around it as moons.
[Illustration: Fig. 50.--Santa Rosa Aerolite.]
_Aerolites._
Sometimes the bodies are large enough to bear the heat, and the
unconsumed centre comes to the earth. [Page 123] Their velocity has
been lessened by the resisting air, and the excessive heat
diminished. Still, if found soon after their descent, they are too
hot to be handled. These are called aerolites or air-stones. There
was a fall in Iowa, in February, 1875, from which fragments
amounting to five hundred pounds weight were secured. On the evening
of December 21st, 1876, a meteor of unusual size and brilliancy
passed over the states of Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, and
Ohio. It was first seen in the western part of Kansas, at an
altitude of about sixty miles. In crossing the State of Missouri it
began to explode, and this breaking up continued while passing
Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio, till it consisted of a large flock of
brilliant balls chasing each other across the sky, the number being
variously estimated at from twenty to one hundred. It was
accompanied by terrific explosions, and was seen along a path of not
less than a thousand miles. When first seen in Kansas, it is said to
have appeared as large as the full moon, and with a train from
twenty-five to one hundred feet long. Another, very similar in
appearance and behavior, passed over a part of the same course in
February, 1879. At Laigle, France, on April 26th, 1803, about one
o'clock in the day, from two to three thousand fell. The largest did
not exceed seventeen pounds weight. One fell in Weston, Connecticut,
in 1807, weighing two hundred pounds. A very destructive shower is
mentioned in the book of Joshua, chap. x. ver. 11.
These bodies are not evenly distributed through space. In some
places they are gathered into systems which circle round the sun
in orbits as certain as those of the [Page 124] planets. The chain
of asteroids is an illustration of meteoric bodies on a large scale.
They are hundreds in number--meteors are millions. They have their
region of travel, and the sun holds them and the giant Jupiter by
the same power. The Power that cares for a world cares for a
sparrow. If their orbit so lies that a planet passes through it, and
the planet and the meteors are at the point of intersection at the
same time, there must be collisions, and the lightning signs of
extinction proportioned to the number of little bodies in a given
space.
It is demonstrated that the earth encounters more than one hundred
such systems of meteoric bodies in a single year. It passes through
one on the 10th of August, another on the 11th of November. In
a certain part of the first there is an agglomeration of bodies
sufficient to become visible as it approaches the sun, and this is
known as the comet of 1862; in the second is a similar agglomeration,
known as Temple's comet. It is repeating the same thing to say that
meteoroids follow in the train of the comets. The probable orbit
of the November meteors and the comet of 1866 is an exceedingly
elongated ellipse, embracing the orbit of the earth at one end and
a portion of the orbit of Uranus at the other (Fig. 51). That of
the August meteors and the comet of 1862 embraces the orbit of
the earth at one end, and thirty per cent. of the other end is
beyond the orbit of Neptune.
[Illustration: Fig. 51.--Orbit of the November Meteors and the Comet
or 1866.]
In January, 1846, Biela's comet was observed to be divided. At
its next return, in 1852, the parts were 1,500,000 miles apart.
They could not be found on their periodic returns in 1859, 1865,
and 1872; but it [Page 125] should have crossed the earth's orbit
early in September, 1872. The earth itself would arrive at the point
of crossing two or three months later. If the law of revolution
held, we might still expect to find some of the trailing meteoroids
of the comet not gone by on our arrival. It was shown that the point
of the earth that would strike them would be toward a certain place
in the constellation of Andromeda, if the remains of the diluted
comet were still there. The prediction was verified in every
respect. At the appointed time, place, [Page 126] and direction, the
streaming lights were in our sky. That these little bodies belonged
to the original comet none can doubt. By the perturbations of
planetary attraction, or by different original velocities, a comet
may be lengthened into an invisible stream, or an invisible stream
agglomerated till it is visible as a comet.
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