Curiosities of the Sky Part 4

Without intending to treat his interesting theory as more than a possibly correct explanation of the phenomena of the Aurora, we may call attention to some apparently confirmatory facts. One of the most striking of these relates to a seasonal variation in the average number of aurorae. It has been observed that there are more in March and September than at any other time of the year, and fewer in June and December; moreover (and this is a delicate test as applied to the theory), they are slightly rarer in June than in December. Now all these facts seem to find a ready explanation in the hypothesis of Arrhenius, thus: (1) The particles issuing from the sun are supposed to come princ.i.p.ally from the regions whose excitement is indicated by the presence of sun-spots (which accords with Hale's observation that sun-spots are columns of ionized vapors), and these regions have a definite location on either side of the solar equator, seldom approaching it nearer than within 5 or 10 north or south, and never extending much beyond 35 toward either pole; (2) The equator of the sun is inclined about 7 to the plane of the earth's...o...b..t, from which it results that twice in a year -- viz., in June and December -- the earth is directly over the solar equator, and twice a year -- viz., in March and September -- when it is farthest north or south of the solar equator, it is over the inner edge of the sun-spot belts. Since the corpuscles must be supposed to be propelled radially from the sun, few will reach the earth when the latter is over the solar equator in June and December, but when it is over, or nearly over, the spot belts, in March and September, it will be in the line of fire of the more active parts of the solar surface, and relatively rich streams of particles will reach it. This, as will be seen from what has been said above, is in strict accord with the observed variations in the frequency of aurorae. Even the fact that somewhat fewer aurorae are seen in June than in December also finds its explanation in the known fact that the earth is about three million miles nearer the sun in the winter than in the summer, and the number of particles reaching it will vary, like the intensity of light, inversely as the square of the distance. These coincidences are certainly very striking, and they have a c.u.mulative force. If we accept the theory, it would appear that we ought to congratulate ourselves that the inclination of the sun's equator is so slight, for as things stand the earth is never directly over the most active regions of the sun-spots, and consequently never suffers from the maximum bombardment of charged particles of which the sun is capable. Incessant auroral displays, with their undulating draperies, flitting colors, and marching columns might not be objectionable from the point of view of picturesqueness, but one magnetic storm of extreme intensity following closely upon the heels of another, for months on end, crazing the magnetic needle and continually putting the telegraph and cable lines out of commission, to say nothing of their effect upon ''wireless telegraphy'', would hardly add to the charms of terrestrial existence.

One or two other curious points in connection with Arrhenius'

hypothesis may be mentioned. First, the number of aurorae, according to his explanation, ought to be greatest in the daytime, when the face of the earth on the sunward side is directly exposed to the atomic bombardment. Of course visual observation can give us no information about this, since the light of the Aurora is never sufficiently intense to be visible in the presence of daylight, but the records of the magnetic observatories can be, and have been, appealed to for information, and they indicate that the facts actually accord with the theory. Behind the veil of sunlight in the middle of the afternoon, there is good reason to believe, auroral exhibitions often take place which would eclipse in magnificence those seen at night if we could behold them. Observation shows, too, that aurorae are more frequent before than after midnight, which is just what we should expect if they originate in the way that Arrhenius supposes. Second, the theory offers an explanation of the alleged fact that the formation of clouds in the upper air is more frequent in years when aurorae are most abundant, because clouds are the result of the condensation of moisture upon floating particles in the atmosphere (in an absolutely dustless atmosphere there would be no clouds), and it has been proved that negative ions like those supposed to come from the sun play a master part in the phenomena of cloud formation.

Yet another singular fact, almost mystical in its suggestions, may be mentioned. It seems that the dance of the auroral lights occurs most frequently during the absence of the moon from the hemisphere in which they appear, and that they flee, in greater part, to the opposite hemisphere when the moon's revolution in an orbit considerably inclined to the earth's equator brings her into that where they have been performing. Arrhenius himself discovered this curious relation of auroral frequency to the position of the moon north or south of the equator, and he explains it in this way. The moon, like the earth, is exposed to the influx of the ions from the sun; but having no atmosphere, or almost none, to interfere with them, they descend directly upon her surface and charge her with an electric negative potential to a very high degree. In consequence of this she affects the electric state of the upper parts of the earth's atmosphere where they lie most directly beneath her, and thus prevents, to a large extent, the negative discharges to which the appearance of the Aurora is due. And so ''the extravagant and erring spirit'' of the Aurora avoids the moon as Hamlet's ghost fled at the voice of the c.o.c.k announcing the awakening of the G.o.d of day.

There are even other apparent confirmations of the hypothesis, but we need not go into them. We shall, however, find one more application of it in the next chapter, for it appears to be a kind of cure-all for astronomical troubles; at any rate it offers a conceivable solution of the question, How does the sun manage to transmit its electric influence to the earth? And this solution is so grandiose in conception, and so novel in the mental pictures that it offers, that its acceptance would not in the least detract from the impression that the Aurora makes upon the imagination.

Strange Adventures of Comets

The fears and legends of ancient times before Science was born, and the superst.i.tions of the Dark Ages, sedulously cultivated for theological purposes by monks and priests, have so colored our ideas of the influence that comets have had upon the human mind that many readers may be surprised to learn that it was the apparition of a wonderful comet, that of 1843, which led to the foundation of our greatest astronomical inst.i.tution, the Harvard College Observatory. No doubt the comet superst.i.tion existed half a century ago, as, indeed, it exists yet today, but in this case the marvelous spectacle in the sky proved less effective in inspiring terror than in awakening a desire for knowledge. Even in the sixteenth century the views that enlightened minds took of comets tended powerfully to inspire popular confidence in science, and Halley's prediction, after seeing and studying the motion of the comet which appeared in 1682, that it would prove to be a regular member of the sun's family and would be seen returning after a period of about seventy-six years, together with the fulfillment of that prediction, produced a revulsion from the superst.i.tious notions which had so long prevailed.

Then the facts were made plain that comets are subject to the law of gravitation equally with the planets; that there are many which regularly return to the neighborhood of the sun (perihelion); and that these travel in orbits differing from those of the planets only in their greater eccentricity, although they have the peculiarity that they do not, like the planets, all go round the sun in the same direction, and do not keep within the general plane of the planetary system, but traverse it sometimes from above and sometimes from below.

Other comets, including most of the ''great'' ones, appear to travel in parabolic or, in a few cases, hyperbolic orbits, which, not being closed curves, never bring them back again. But it is not certain that these orbits may not be extremely eccentric ellipses, and that after the lapse of hundreds, or thousands, of years the comets that follow them may not reappear. The question is an interesting one, because if all orbits are really ellipses, then all comets must be permanent members of the solar system, while in the contrary case many of them are simply visitors, seen once and never to be seen again. The hypothesis that comets are originally interlopers might seem to derive some support from the fact that the certainly periodic ones are a.s.sociated, in groups, with the great outer planets, whose attraction appears to have served as a trap for them by turning them into elliptical orbits and thus making them prisoners in the solar system.

Jupiter, owing to his great ma.s.s and his commanding situation in the system, is the chief ''comet-catcher;'' but he catches them not for himself, but for the sun. Yet if comets do come originally from without the borders of the planetary system, it does not, by any means, follow that they were wanderers at large in s.p.a.ce before they yielded to the overmastering attraction of the sun. Investigation of the known cometary orbits, combined with theoretical considerations, has led some astronomers to the conclusion that as the sun travels onward through s.p.a.ce he ''picks up en route'' cometary ma.s.ses which, without belonging strictly to his empire, are borne along in the same vast ''cosmical current'' that carries the solar system.

But while no intelligent person any longer thinks that the appearance of a great comet is a token from the heavenly powers of the approaching death of a mighty ruler, or the outbreak of a devastating war, or the infliction of a terrible plague upon wicked mankind, science itself has discovered mysteries about comets which are not less fascinating because they are more intellectual than the irrational fancies that they have displaced. To bring the subject properly before the mind, let us see what the princ.i.p.al phenomena connected with a comet are.

At the present day comets are ordinarily ''picked up'' with the telescope or the photographic plate before any one except their discoverer is aware of their existence, and usually they remain so insignificant in appearance that only astronomers ever see them. Yet so great is the prestige of the word ''comet'' that the discovery of one of these inconspicuous wanderers, and its subsequent movements, become items of the day's news which everybody reads with the feeling, perhaps, that at least he knows what is going on in the universe even if he doesn't understand it. But a truly great comet presents quite a different proposition. It, too, is apt to be detected coming out of the depths of s.p.a.ce before the world at large can get a glimpse of it, but as it approaches the sun its aspect undergoes a marvelous change.

Agitated apparently by solar influence, it throws out a long streaming tail of nebulous light, directed away from the sun and looking as if blown out like a pennon by a powerful wind. Whatever may be the position of the comet with regard to the sun, as it circles round him it continually keeps its tail on the off side. This, as we shall soon see, is a fact of capital importance in relation to the probable nature of comets' tails. Almost at the same time that the formation of the tail is observed a remarkable change takes place in the comet's head, which, by the way, is invariably and not merely occasionally its most important part. On approaching the sun the head usually contracts. Coincidently with this contraction a nucleus generally makes its appearance. This is a bright, star-like point in the head, and it probably represents the totality of solid matter that the comet possesses. But it is regarded as extremely unlikely that even the nucleus consists of a uniformly solid ma.s.s. If it were such, comets would be far more formidable visitors when they pa.s.s near the planets than they have been found to be. The diameter of the nucleus may vary from a few hundred up to several thousand miles; the heads, on the average, are from twenty-five thousand to one hundred thousand miles in diameter, although a few have greatly exceeded these dimensions; that of the comet of 1811, one of the most stupendous ever seen, was a million and a quarter miles in diameter! As to the tails, not withstanding their enormous length -- some have been more than a hundred million miles long -- there is reason to believe that they are of extreme tenuity, ''as rare as vacuum.'' The smallest stars have been seen s.h.i.+ning through their most brilliant portions with undiminished l.u.s.ter.

After the nucleus has been formed it begins to throw out bright jets directed toward the sun. A stream, and sometimes several streams, of light also project sunward from the nucleus, occasionally appearing like a stunted tail directed oppositely to the real tail. Symmetrical envelopes which, seen in section, appear as half circles or parabolas, rise sunward from the nucleus, forming a concentric series. The ends of these stream backward into the tail, to which they seem to supply material. Ordinarily the formation of these ejections and envelopes is attended by intense agitation of the nucleus, which twists and turns, swinging and gyrating with an appearance of the greatest violence.

Sometimes the nucleus is seen to break up into several parts. The entire heads of some comets have been split asunder in pa.s.sing close around the sun; The comet of 1882 retreated into s.p.a.ce after its perihelion pa.s.sage with five heads instead of the one that it had originally, and each of these heads had its own tail!

The possession of the spectroscope has enabled astronomers during later years to study the chemical composition of comets by a.n.a.lyzing their light. At first the only substances thus discovered in them were hydro-carbon compounds, due evidently to the gaseous envelopes in which some combination of hydrogen with carbon existed. Behind this gaseous spectrum was found a faint continuous spectrum ascribed to the nucleus, which apparently both reflects the sunlight and gives forth the light of a glowing solid or liquid. Subsequently sodium and iron lines were found in cometary spectra. The presence of iron would seem to indicate that some of these bodies may be much more ma.s.sive than observations on their attractive effects have indicated. In some recent comets, such as Morehouse's, in 1908, several lines have been found, the origin of which is unknown.

Without going back of the nineteenth century we may find records of some of the most extraordinary comets that man has ever looked upon.

In 1811, still spoken of as ''the year of the comet,'' because of the wonderful vintage ascribed to the skyey visitor, a comet shaped like a gigantic sword amazed the whole world, and, as it remained visible for seventeen months, was regarded by superst.i.tious persons as a symbol of the fearful happenings of Napoleon's Russian campaign. This comet, the extraordinary size of whose head, greatly exceeding that of the sun itself, has already been mentioned, was also remarkable for exhibiting so great a brilliancy without approaching even to the earth's distance from the sun. But there was once a comet (and only once -- in the year 1729) which never got nearer to the sun than four times the distance of the earth and yet appeared as a formidable object in the sky. As Professor Young has remarked, ''it must have been an enormous comet to be visible from such a distance.'' And we are to remember that there were no great telescopes in the year 1729. That comet affects the imagination like a phantom of s.p.a.ce peering into the solar system, displaying its enormous train afar off (which, if it had approached as near as other comets, would probably have become the celestial wonder of all human memory), and then turning away and vanis.h.i.+ng in the depths of immensity.

In 1843 a comet appeared which was so brilliant that it could be seen in broad day close beside the sun! This was the first authenticated instance of that kind, but the occurrence was to be repeated, as we shall see in a moment, less than forty years later.

The splendid comet of 1858, usually called Donati's, is remembered by many persons yet living. It was, perhaps, both as seen by the naked eye and with the telescope, the most beautiful comet of which we have any record. It too marked a rich vintage year, still remembered in the vineyards of France, where there is a popular belief that a great comet ripens the grape and imparts to the wine a flavor not attainable by the mere skill of the cultivator. There are ''comet wines,''

carefully treasured in certain cellars, and brought forth only when their owner wishes to treat his guests to a sip from paradise.

The year 1861 saw another very remarkable comet, of an aspect strangely vast and diffuse, which is believed to have swept the earth with its immense tail when it pa.s.sed between us and the sun on the night of June 30th, an event which produced no other known effect than the appearance of an unwonted amount of scattered light in the sky.

The next very notable comet was the ''Great Southern Comet'' of 1880, which was not seen from the northern hemisphere. It mimicked the aspect of the famous comet of 1843, and to the great surprise of astronomers appeared to be traveling in the same path. This proved to be the rising of the curtain for an astronomical sensation unparalleled in its kind; for two years later another brilliant comet appeared, first in the southern hemisphere, and it too followed the same track. The startling suggestion was now made that this comet was identical with those of 1843 and 1880, its return having been hastened by the resistance experienced in pa.s.sing twice through the coronal envelope, and there were some who thought that it would now swing swiftly round and then plunge straight into the sun, with consequences that might be disastrous to us on account of the ''flash of heat''

that would be produced by the impact. Nervous people were frightened, but observation soon proved that the danger was imaginary, for although the comet almost grazed the sun, and must have rushed through two or three million miles of the coronal region, no r.e.t.a.r.dation of its immense velocity was perceptible, and it finally pa.s.sed away in a damaged condition, as before remarked, and has never since appeared.

Then the probable truth was perceived -- viz., that the three comets (1843, 1880, and 1882) were not one identical body, but three separate ones all traveling in the same orbit. It was found, too, that a comet seen in 1668 bore similar insignia of relations.h.i.+p. The natural inference was that these four bodies had once formed a single ma.s.s which had been split apart by the disruptive action of the sun.

Strength was lent to this hypothesis by the fact that the comet of 1882 was apparently torn asunder during its perihelion pa.s.sage, retreating into s.p.a.ce in a dissevered state. But Prof. George Forbes has a theory that the splitting of the original cometary ma.s.s was effected by an unknown planet, probably greater than Jupiter, situated at a hundred times the earth's distance from the sun, and revolving in a period of a thousand years. He supposes that the original comet was not that of 1668, but one seen in 1556, which has since been ''missing,'' and that its disruption occurred from an encounter with the supposit.i.tious planet about the year 1700. Truly from every point of view comets are the most extraordinary of adventurers!

The comet of 1882 was likewise remarkable for being visible, like its predecessor of 1843, in full daylight in close proximity to the sun.

The story of its detection when almost in contact with the solar disk is dramatic. It had been discovered in the southern hemisphere only a couple of weeks before its perihelion, which occurred on September 17th, and on the forenoon of that day it was seen by Doctor Common in England, and by Doctor Elkin and Mr Finlay at the Cape of Good Hope, almost touching the sun. It looked like a dazzling white bird with outspread wings. The southern observers watched it go right into the sun, when it instantly disappeared. What had happened was that the comet in pa.s.sing its perihelion point had swung exactly between the earth and the sun. On the following morning it was seen from all parts of the world close by the sun on the opposite side, and it remained thus visible for three days, gradually receding from the solar disk.

It then became visible for northern observers in the morning sky before sunrise, brandis.h.i.+ng a portentous sword-shaped tail which, if it had been in the evening sky, would have excited the wonder of hundreds of millions, but situated where it was, comparatively few ever saw it.

The application of photography to the study of comets has revealed many curious details which might otherwise have escaped detection, or at best have remained subject to doubt. It has in particular shown not only the precise form of the tails, but the remarkable vicissitudes that they undergo. Professor Barnard's photographs of Brooks' comet in 1893 suggested, by the extraordinary changes in the form of the tail which they revealed, that the comet was encountering a series of obstructions in s.p.a.ce which bent and twisted its tail into fantastic shapes. The reader will observe the strange form into which the tail was thrown on the night of October 21st. A cloud of meteors through which the comet was pa.s.sing might have produced such deformations of its tail. In the photograph of Daniels' comet of 1907, a curious striping of the tail will be noticed. The short bright streaks seen in the photograph, it may be explained, are the images of stars which are drawn out into lines in consequence of the fact that the photographic telescope was adjusted to follow the motion of the comet while the stars remained at rest.

But the adventures of comets are not confined to possible encounters with unknown obstacles. We have referred to the fact that the great planets, and especially Jupiter, frequently interfere with the motions of comets. This interference is not limited to the original alteration of their orbits from possible parabolas to ellipses, but is sometimes exercised again and again, turning the bewildered comets into elliptical paths of all degrees of eccentricity. A famous example of this kind of planetary horse-play is furnished by the story of Lexell's missing comet. This comet was first seen in 1770.

Investigation showed that it was moving in an orbit which should bring it back to perihelion every five and a half years; yet it had never been seen before and, although often searched for, has never been seen since. Laplace and Leverrier proved mathematically that in 1767 it had approached so close to Jupiter as to be involved among the orbits of his satellites. What its track had been before is not known, but on that occasion the giant planet seized the interloper, threw it into a short elliptic orbit and sent it, like an arrested vagrant, to receive sentence at the bar of the sun. On this journey it pa.s.sed within less than 1,500,000 miles of the earth. The form of orbit which Jupiter had impressed required, as we have said, its return in about five and a half years; but soon after 1770 it had the misfortune a second time to encounter Jupiter at close range, and he, as if dissatisfied with the leniency of the sun, or indignant at the stranger's familiarity, seized the comet and hurled it out of the system, or at any rate so far away that it has never since been able to rejoin the family circle that basks in the immediate rays of the solar hearth. Nor is this the only instance in which Jupiter has dealt summarily with small comets that have approached him with too little deference.

The function which Jupiter so conspicuously fulfills as master of the hounds to the sun is worth considering a little more in detail. To change the figure, imagine the sun in its voyage through s.p.a.ce to be like a majestic battles.h.i.+p surrounded by its scouts. Small vessels (the comets, as they are overhauled by the squadron, are taken in charge by the scouts, with Jupiter for their chief, and are forced to accompany the fleet, but not all are impressed. If a strange comet undertakes to run across Jupiter's bows the latter brings it to, and makes prize of it by throwing it into a relatively small ellipse with the sun for its focus. Thenceforth, unless, as happened to the unhappy comet of Lexell, it encounters Jupiter again in such a way as to be diverted by him into a more distant orbit, it can never get away.

About thirty comets are now known to have thus been captured by the great planet, and they are called ''Jupiter's Comet Family.'' But, on the other hand, if a wandering comet crosses the wake of the chief planetary scout the latter simply drives it away by accelerating its motion and compels it to steer off into open s.p.a.ce. The transformation of comets into meteors will be considered in the next chapter, but here, in pa.s.sing, mention may be made of the strange fate of one member of Jupiter's family, Biela's comet, which, having become over bold in its advances to its captor, was, after a few revolutions in is impressed orbit, torn to pieces and turned into a flock of meteors.

And now let us return to the mystery of comets' tails. That we are fully justified in speaking of the tails of comets as mysterious is proved by the declaration of Sir John Herschel, who averred, in so many words, that ''there is some profound secret and mystery of nature concerned in this phenomenon,'' and this profound secret and mystery has not yet been altogether cleared up. Nevertheless, the all-explaining hypothesis of Arrhenius offers us once more a certain amount of aid. Comets' tails, Arrhenius a.s.sures us, are but another result of the pressure of light. The reader will recall the applications of this theory to the Zodiacal Light and the Aurora. In the form in which we now have to deal with it, the supposition is made that as a comet approaches the sun eruptions of vapor, due to the solar heat, occur in its nucleus. These are naturally most active on the side which is directly exposed to the sun, whence the appearance of the immense glowing envelopes that surround the nucleus on the sunward side. Among the particles of hydro-carbon, and perhaps solid carbon in the state of fine dust, which are thus set free there will be many whose size is within the critical limit which enables the light-waves from the sun to drive them away. Clouds of such particles, then, will stream off behind the advancing comet, producing the appearance of a tail. This accounts for the fact that the tails of comets are always directed away from the sun, and it also explains the varying forms of the tails and the extraordinary changes that they undergo. The speed of the particles driven before the light-waves must depend upon their size and weight, the lightest of a given size traveling the most swiftly. By accretion certain particles might grow, thus losing velocity and producing the appearance of bunches in the tail, such as have been observed. The hypothesis also falls in with the researches of Bredichin, who has divided the tails of comets into three princ.i.p.al cla.s.ses -- viz.: (1) Those which appear as long, straight rays; (2) Those which have the form of curved plumes or scimitars; (3) Those which are short, brushy, and curved sharply backward along the comet's path. In the first type he calculates the repulsive force at from twelve to fifteen times the force of gravity; in the second at from two to four times; and in the third at about one and a half times. The straight tails he ascribes to hydrogen because the hydrogen atom is the lightest known; the sword-shaped tails to hydro-carbons; and the stumpy tails to vaporized iron. It will be seen that, if the force driving off the tails is that which Arrhenius a.s.sumes it to be, the forms of those appendages would accord with those that Bredichin's theory calls for. At the same time we have an explanation of the multiple tails with which some comets have adorned themselves. The comet of 1744, for instance, had at one time no less than seven tails spread in a wide curved brush behind it. Donati's comet of 1858 also had at least two tails, the princ.i.p.al one sword-shaped and the other long, narrow, and as straight as a rule.

According to Bredichin, the straight tail must have been composed of hydrogen, and the other of some form of hydro-carbon whose atoms are heavier than those of hydrogen, and, consequently, when swept away by the storm of light-waves, followed a curvature depending upon the resultant of the forces operating upon them. The seven tails of the comet of 1744 presented a kind of diagram graphically exhibiting its complex composition, and, if we knew a little more about the const.i.tuents of a comet, we might be able to say from the amount of curvature of the different tails just what were the seven substances of which that comet consisted.

If these theories seem to the reader fantastic, at any rate they are no more fantastic than the phenomena that they seek to explain.

Meteors, Fire-b.a.l.l.s, and Meteorites

One of the most terrorizing spectacles with which the heavens have ever caused the hearts of men to quake occurred on the night of November 13, 1833. On that night North America, which faced the storm, was under a continual rain of fire from about ten o'clock in the evening until daybreak.

The fragments of a comet had struck the earth.

But the meaning of what had happened was not discovered until long afterward. To the astronomers who, with astonishment not less than that of other people, watched the wonderful scene, it was an unparalleled ''shower of meteors.'' They did not then suspect that those meteors had once formed the head of a comet. Light dawned when, a year later, Prof. Denison Olmsted, of Yale College, demonstrated that the meteors had all moved in parallel orbits around the sun, and that these orbits intersected that of the earth at the point where our planet happened to be on the memorable night of November 13th.

Professor Olmsted even went so far as to suggest that the cloud of meteors that had encountered the earth might form a diffuse comet; but full recognition of the fact that they were cometary debris came later, as the result of further investigation. The key to the secret was plainly displayed in the spectacle itself, and was noticed without being understood by thousands of the terror-stricken beholders. It was an umbrella of fire that had opened overhead and covered the heavens; in other words, the meteors all radiated from a particular point in the constellation Leo, and, being countless as the snowflakes in a winter tempest, they ribbed the sky with fiery streaks. Professor Olmsted showed that the radiation of the meteors from a fixed point was an effect of perspective, and in itself a proof that they were moving in parallel paths when they encountered the earth. The fact was noted that there had been a similar, but incomparably less brilliant, display of meteors on the same day of November, 1832, and it was rightly concluded that these had belonged to the same stream, although the true relations.h.i.+p of the phenomena was not immediately apprehended. Olmsted ascribed to the meteors a revolution about the sun once in every six months, bringing them to the intersection of their orbit with that of the earth every November 13th; but later investigators found that the real period was about thirty-three and one-quarter years, so that the great displays were due three times in a century, and their return was confidently predicted for the year 1866. The appearance of the meteors in 1832, a year before the great display, was ascribed to the great length of the stream which they formed in s.p.a.ce -- so great that they required more than two years to cross the earth's...o...b..t. In 1832 the earth had encountered a relatively rare part of the stream, but in 1833, on returning to the crossing-place, it found there the richest part of the stream pouring across its...o...b..t. This explanation also proved to be correct, and the predicted return in 1866 was duly witnessed, although the display was much less brilliant than in 1833. It was followed by another in 1867.

In the mean time Olmsted's idea of a cometary relations.h.i.+p of the meteors was demonstrated to be correct by the researches of Schiaparelli and others, who showed that not only the November meteors, but those of August, which are seen more or less abundantly every year, traveled in the tracks of well-known comets, and had undoubtedly an identical origin with those comets. In other words the comets and the meteor-swarms were both remnants of original ma.s.ses which had probably been split up by the action of the sun, or of some planet to which they had made close approaches. The annual periodicity of the August meteors was ascribed to the fact that the separation had taken place so long ago that the meteors had become distributed all around the orbit, in consequence of which the earth encountered some of them every year when it arrived at the crossing-point. Then Leverrier showed that the original comet a.s.sociated with the November meteors was probably brought into the system by the influence of the planet Ura.n.u.s in the year 126 of the Christian era. Afterward Alexander Herschel identified the tracks of no less than seventy-six meteor-swarms (most of them inconspicuous) with those of comets. The still more recent researches of Mr W. F. Denning make it probable that there are no meteors which do not belong to a flock or system probably formed by the disintegration of a cometary ma.s.s; even the apparently sporadic ones which shoot across the sky, ''lost souls in the night,''

being members of flocks which have become so widely scattered that the earth sometimes takes weeks to pa.s.s through the region of s.p.a.ce where their paths lie.

The November meteors should have exhibited another pair of spectacles in 1899 and 1900, and their failure to do so caused at first much disappointment, until it was made plain that a good reason existed for their absence. It was found that after their last appearance, in 1867, they had been disturbed in their movements by the planets Jupiter and Saturn, whose attractions had so s.h.i.+fted the position of their orbit that it no longer intersected that of the earth, as it did before.

Whether another planetary interference will sometime bring the princ.i.p.al ma.s.s of the November meteors back to the former point of intersection with the earth's...o...b..t is a question for the future to decide. It would seem that there may be several parallel streams of the November meteors, and that some of them, like those of August, are distributed entirely around the orbit, so that every mid-November we see a few of them.

We come now to a very remarkable example of the disintegration of a comet and the formation of a meteor-stream. In 1826 Biela, of Josephstadt, Austria, discovered a comet to which his name was given.

Calculation showed that it had an orbital period of about six and a half years, belonging to Jupiter's ''family.'' On one of its returns, in 1846, it astonished its watchers by suddenly splitting in two. The two comets thus formed out of one separated to a distance of about one hundred and sixty thousand miles, and then raced side by side, sometimes with a curious ligature connecting them, like Siamese twins, until they disappeared together in interplanetary s.p.a.ce. In 1852 they came back, still nearly side by side, but now the distance between them had increased to a million and a quarter of miles. After that, at every recurrence of their period, astronomers looked for them in vain, until 1872, when an amazing thing happened. On the night of November 28th, when the earth was crossing the plane of the orbit of the missing comet, a brilliant shower of meteors burst from the northern sky, traveling nearly in the track which the comet should have pursued. The astronomers were electrified. Klinkerfues, of Gottingen, telegraphed to Pogson, of Madras: ''Biela touched earth; search near Theta Centauri.'' Pogson searched in the place indicated and saw a cometary ma.s.s retreating into the southern heavens, where it was soon swallowed from sight!

Since then the Biela meteors have been among the recognized periodic spectacles of the sky, and few if any doubt that they represent a portion of the missing comet whose disintegration began with the separation into two parts in 1846. The comet itself has never since been seen. The first display of these meteors, sometimes called the ''Andromedes,'' because they radiate from the constellation Andromeda, was remarkable for the great brilliancy of many of the fire-b.a.l.l.s that shot among the shower of smaller sparks, some of which were described as equaling the full moon in size. None of them is known to have reached the earth, but during the display of the same meteors in 1885 a meteoric ma.s.s fell at Mazapil in Northern Mexico (it is now in the Museum at Vienna), which many have thought may actually be a piece of the original comet of Biela. This brings us to the second branch of our subject.

More rare than meteors or falling stars, and more startling, except that they never appear in showers, are the huge b.a.l.l.s of fire which occasionally dart through the sky, lighting up the landscapes beneath with their glare, leaving trains of sparks behind them, often producing peals of thunder when they explode, and in many cases falling upon the earth and burying themselves from a few inches to several feet in the soil, from which, more than once, they have been picked up while yet hot and fuming. These b.a.l.l.s are sometimes called bolides. They are not really round in shape, although they often look so while traversing the sky, but their forms are fragmentary, and occasionally fantastic. It has been supposed that their origin is different from that of the true meteors; it has even been conjectured that they may have originated from the giant volcanoes of the moon or have been shot out from the sun during some of the tremendous explosions that accompany the formation of eruptive prominences. By the same reasoning some of them might be supposed to have come from some distant star. Others have conjectured that they are wanderers in s.p.a.ce, of unknown origin, which the earth encounters as it journeys on, and Lord Kelvin made a suggestion which has become cla.s.sic because of its imaginative reach -- viz., that the first germs of life may have been brought to the earth by one of these bodies, ''a fragment of an exploded world.''

It is a singular fact that astronomers and scientific men in general were among the last to admit the possibility of solid ma.s.ses falling from the sky. The people had believed in the reality of such phenomena from the earliest times, but the savants shook their heads and talked of superst.i.tion. This was the less surprising because no scientifically authenticated instance of such an occurrence was known, and the stones popularly believed to have fallen from the sky had become the objects of wors.h.i.+p or superst.i.tious reverence, a fact not calculated to recommend them to scientific credence. The celebrated ''black stone'' suspended in the Kaaba at Mecca is one of these reputed gifts from heaven; the ''Palladium'' of ancient Troy was another; and a stone which fell near Ensisheim, in Germany, was placed in a church as an object to be religiously venerated. Many legends of falling stones existed in antiquity, some of them curiously transfigured by the imagination, like the ''Lion of the Peloponnesus,'' which was said to have sprung down from the sky upon the Isthmus of Corinth. But near the beginning of the nineteenth century, in 1803, a veritable shower of falling stones occurred at L'Aigle, in Northern France, and this time astronomers took note of the phenomenon and scientifically investigated it. Thousands of the strange projectiles came from the sky on this occasion, and were scattered over a wide area of country, and some buildings were hit.

Four years later another shower of stones occurred at Weston, Conn., numbering thousands of individuals. The local alarm created in both cases was great, as well it might be, for what could be more intimidating than to find the blue vault of heaven suddenly hurling solid missiles at the homes of men? After these occurrences it was impossible for the most skeptical to doubt any longer, and the regular study of ''aerolites,'' or ''meteorites,'' began.

One of the first things recognized was the fact that fire-b.a.l.l.s are solid meteorites in flight, and not gaseous exhalations in the air, as some had a.s.sumed. They burn in the air during their flight, and sometimes, perhaps, are entirely consumed before reaching the ground.

Their velocity before entering the earth's atmosphere is equal to that of the planets in their orbits -- viz., from twenty to thirty miles per second -- a fact which proves that the sun is the seat of the central force governing them. Their burning in the air is not difficult to explain; it is the heat of friction which so quickly brings them to incandescence. Calculation shows that a body moving through the air at a velocity of about a mile per second will be brought, superficially, to the temperature of ''red heat'' by friction with the atmosphere. If its velocity is twenty miles per second the temperature will become thousands of degrees. This is the state of affairs with a meteorite rus.h.i.+ng into the earth's atmosphere; its surface is liquefied within a few seconds after the friction begins to act, and the melted and vaporized portion of its ma.s.s is swept backward, forming the train of sparks that follows every great fire-ball. However, there is one phenomenon connected with the trains of meteorites which has never been satisfactorily explained: they often persist for long periods of time, drifting and turning with the wind, but not ceasing to glow with a phosph.o.r.escent luminosity. The question is, Whence comes this light? It must be light without heat, since the fine dust or vapor of which the train can only consist would not retain sufficient heat to render it luminous for so long a time.

An extremely remarkable incident of this kind occurred on February 22, 1909, when an immense fire-ball that pa.s.sed over southern England left a train that remained visible during two hours, a.s.suming many curious shapes as it was drifted about by currents in the air.

But notwithstanding the enormous velocity with which meteorites enter the air they are soon slowed down to comparatively moderate speed, so that when they disappear they are usually traveling not faster than a mile a second. The courses of many have been traced by observers situated along their track at various points, and thus a knowledge has been obtained of their height above the ground during their flight and of the length of their visible courses. They generally appear at an elevation of eighty or a hundred miles, and are seldom visible after having descended to within five miles of the ground, unless the observer happens to be near the striking-point, when he may actually witness the fall. Frequently they burst while high in the air and their fragments are scattered like shrapnel over the surface of the ground, sometimes covering an area of several square miles, but of course not thickly; different fragments of the same meteorite may reach the ground at points several miles apart. The observed length of their courses in the atmosphere varies from fifty to five hundred miles. If they continued a long time in flight after entering the air, even the largest of them would probably be consumed to the last sc.r.a.p, but their fiery career is so short on account of their great speed that the heat does not have time to penetrate very deeply, and some that have been picked up immediately after their fall have been found cold as ice within. Their size after reaching the ground is variable within wide limits; some are known which weigh several tons, but the great majority weigh only a few pounds and many only a few ounces.

Meteorites are of two kinds: stony meteorites and iron meteorites. The former outnumber the latter twenty to one; but many stone meteorites contain grains of iron. Nickel is commonly found in iron meteorites, so that it might be said that that redoubtable alloy nickel-steel is of cosmical invention. Some twenty-five chemical elements have been found in meteorites, including carbon and the ''sun-metal,'' helium.

The presence of the latter is certainly highly suggestive in connection with the question of the origin of meteorites. The iron meteorites, besides metallic iron and nickel, of which they are almost entirely composed, contain hydrogen, helium, and carbonic oxide, and about the only imaginable way in which these gases could have become absorbed in the iron would be through the immersion of the latter while in a molten or vaporized state in a hot and dense atmosphere composed of them, a condition which we know to exist only in the envelopes of the sun and the stars.

The existence of carbon in the Canyon Diablo iron meteorites is attended by a circ.u.mstance of the most singular character -- a very ''fairy tale of science.'' In some cases the carbon has become diamond! These meteoric diamonds are very small; nevertheless, they are true diamonds, resembling in many ways the little black gems produced by Moissan's method with the aid of the electric furnace. The fact that they are found embedded in these iron meteorites is another argument in favor of the hypothesis of the solar or stellar origin of the latter. To appreciate this it is necessary to recall the way in which Moissan made his diamonds. It was by a combination of the effects of great heat, great pressure, and sudden or rapid superficial cooling on a ma.s.s of iron containing carbon. When he finally broke open his iron he found it a pudding stuffed with miniature black diamonds. When a fragment of the Canyon Diablo meteoric iron was polished in Philadelphia over fifteen years ago it cut the emery-wheel to pieces, and examination showed that the damage had been effected by microscopic diamonds peppered through the ma.s.s. How were those diamonds formed? If the sun or Sirius was the laboratory that prepared them, we can get a glimpse at the process of their formation. There is plenty of heat, plenty of pressure, and an abundance of vaporized iron in the sun and the stars. When a great solar eruption takes place, ma.s.ses of iron which have absorbed carbon may be shot out with a velocity which forbids their return. Plunged into the frightful cold of s.p.a.ce, their surfaces are quickly cooled, as Moissan cooled his prepared iron by throwing it into water, and thus the requisite stress is set up within, and, as the iron solidifies, the included carbon crystallizes into diamonds. Whether this explanation has a germ of truth in it or not, at any rate it is evident that iron meteorites were not created in the form in which they come to us; they must once have been parts of immeasurably more ma.s.sive bodies than themselves.

The fall of meteorites offers an appreciable, though numerically insignificant, peril to the inhabitants of the earth. Historical records show perhaps three or four instances of people being killed by these bodies. But for the protection afforded by the atmosphere, which acts as a very effective s.h.i.+eld, the danger would doubtless be very much greater. In the absence of an atmosphere not only would more meteorites reach the ground, but their striking force would be incomparably greater, since, as we have seen, the larger part of their original velocity is destroyed by the resistance of the air. A meteorite weighing many tons and striking the earth with a velocity of twenty or thirty miles per second, would probably cause frightful havoc.

It is a singular fact that recent investigations seem to have proved that an event of this kind actually happened in North America -- perhaps not longer than a thousand or two thousand years ago. The scene of the supposed catastrophe is in northern central Arizona, at c.o.o.n b.u.t.te, where there is a nearly circular crater in the middle of a circular elevation or small mountain. The crater is somewhat over four thousand feet in diameter, and the surrounding rim, formed of upturned strata and ejected rock fragments, rises at its highest point one hundred and sixty feet above the plain. The crater is about six hundred feet in depth -- that is, from the rim to the visible floor or bottom of the crater. There is no evidence that volcanic action has ever taken place in the immediate neighborhood of c.o.o.n b.u.t.te. The rock in which the crater has been made is composed of horizontal sandstone and limestone strata. Between three hundred and four hundred million tons of rock fragments have been detached, and a large portion hurled by some cause out of the crater. These fragments lie concentrically distributed around the crater, and in large measure form the elevation known as c.o.o.n b.u.t.te. The region has been famous for nearly twenty years on account of the ma.s.ses of meteoric iron found scattered about and known as the ''Canyon Diablo'' meteorites. It was one of these ma.s.ses, which consist of nickel-iron containing a small quant.i.ty of platinum, and of which in all some ten tons have been recovered for sale to the various collectors throughout the world, that as before mentioned destroyed the grinding-tool at Philadelphia through the cutting power of its embedded diamonds. These meteoric irons are scattered about the crater-hill, in concentric distribution, to a maximum distance of about five miles. When the suggestion was first made in 1896 that a monster meteorite might have created by its fall this singular lone crater in stratified rocks, it was greeted with incredulous smiles; but since then the matter has a.s.sumed a different aspect. The Standard Iron Company, formed by Messrs. D. M. Barringer, B. C. Tilghman, E. J. Bennitt, and S. J. Holsinger, having become, in 1903, the owner of this freak of nature, sunk shafts and bored holes to a great depth in the interior of the crater, and also trenched the slopes of the mountain, and the result of their investigations has proved that the meteoric hypothesis of origin is correct. (See the papers published in the Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, December, 1905, wherein it is proved that the United States Geological Survey was wrong in believing this crater to have been due to a steam explosion. Since that date there has been discovered a great amount of additional confirmatory proof). Material of unmistakably meteoric origin was found by means of the drills, mixed with crushed rock, to a depth of six hundred to seven hundred feet below the floor of the crater, and a great deal of it has been found admixed with the ejected rock fragments on the outer slopes of the mountain, absolutely proving synchronism between the two events, the formation of this great crater and the falling of the meteoric iron out of the sky. The drill located in the bottom of the crater was sent, in a number of cases, much deeper (over one thousand feet) into unaltered horizontal red sandstone strata, but no meteoric material was found below this depth (seven hundred feet, or between eleven and twelve hundred feet below the level of the surrounding plain), which has been a.s.sumed as being about the limit of penetration. It is not possible to sink a shaft at present, owing to the water which has drained into the crater, and which forms, with the finely pulverized sandstone, a very troublesome quicksand encountered at about two hundred feet below the visible floor of the crater. As soon as this water is removed by pumping it will be easy to explore the depths of the crater by means of shafts and drifts. The rock strata (sandstone and limestone) of which the walls consist present every appearance of having been violently upturned by a huge body penetrating the earth like a cannon-ball. The general aspect of the crater strikingly resembles the impression made by a steel projectile shot into an armor-plate. Mr Tilghman has estimated that a meteorite about five hundred feet in diameter and moving with a velocity of about five miles per second would have made just such a perforation upon striking rocks of the character of those found at this place. There was some fusion of the colliding ma.s.ses, and the heat produced some steam from the small amount of water in the rocks. As a result there has been found at depth a considerable amount of fused quartz (original sandstone), and with it innumerable particles or sparks of fused nickel-iron (original meteorite). A projectile of that size penetrating eleven to twelve hundred feet into the rocky sh.e.l.l of the globe must have produced a shock which was perceptible several hundred miles away.