158 



METEORS 



METHODISTS 



radiants give meteors of special tints, or more or 

 lew disposed to giving oil' spark- in their coins.-, so 

 that each radiant is evidently the source of a family 

 of metei'is. whose characteristics are recognised at 

 each iN'riod of activity. 



Such a indiating tion implies that the meteors 



from one radiant move all in parallrl courses, the 

 curvature and radiation of their track* licing due 

 to perspective and to projection on the K/iln >; 

 which the eye naturally assumes as the liackground 

 of all celestial pMMMOM. On the occasion of a 

 meteoric shower the earth, therefore, is passing 

 through a crowd of small liodies, themselves in 

 motion, meet ing or pa-siug it on a definite trur/;. 

 We have then to a.-k what is the form of this 

 meteor track whence come ami whither go the 

 meteoi-s we encounter in such mi ml NTS. I'siially 

 there is a tolerably definite time, recurring annually, 

 during which a radiant is active. This was the 

 I'M -I brood fact impressed upon observers. Al- 

 though at such yearly |>erHHls the niimlier of 

 meteors may be very large or very small, there are 

 at least a /< almost always seen. From this it 

 was early seen that certain parts of space, through 

 which the earth passed every year, were occupied, 

 nt the date of such p.-issage, by meteors travelling 

 past with planetary velocities. That the meteors, 



a.s well as ll arth, were in orbital movement 



round the sun. was soon noted (in ISH4) by Pro- 

 : Olm-ted of Yale. He considered that 

 tin- November meteors (or Leonids) revolved 

 in a narrow ellipse in a period of about 182 

 days, and that each November the earth in ita 

 orbit passed across the outer end of this ellipse, 

 em-ountciing there what meteors might be in that 

 part of their path. This theory, however, though 

 |i ilde in |M'ihaps ,mr case, could hardly lie applied 

 to the great numlicr of meteor Hack- which the 

 earth crosses, as it is exceedingly improbable that 

 so many meteor oibits would just touch the earth's 

 orbit at their aphelion. 



It was proposed, then, to regard the meteors as 

 travelling in a ring round the sun, which ring the 

 earth crossed in two parts of its annual track in 

 August ami NovemlNT. Itoth these theories re- 



d the niet.-ois as gathered into a cloud or 

 swarm at one particular part of their orbit. When 

 the earth chanced to cro-s the place of intersection 

 at the Mime time an the main swarm of meteors, 

 then a vivid display wo.- produced, but a difference 

 in (icriod lictvM-cn the earth and main swarm caused 

 such meeting- to take place only at long intervals. 

 Meteors, however, licing disMil.uted all along the 

 im-teor tinck. the earth cncounUTed some at least 

 in August and NovemlNT every year. 



Thi- investigation received its im]wtus from 

 the great di-play of I,eomds in lH.'!.'t, chielly 

 nited in Anietie.i, and for some time remained 

 the 'text-hook explanation.' I'nifcKsor II. A. 

 Newton of Yah-, HWWWL however, in 1804 that 

 other great Leonid di-plavs had taken place on 

 twelve occasions U'tweeu <*r> A.I), and IS33, se|iar- 

 atcl by periods of either XI '2 4 years or multiples 

 of that number, fie therefore piedi.-te.l a grand 

 ili-plav on NovemlNT 13-14. IWMi, which was duly 

 sve.l. Itut the date of the eailiest display in 

 W>2 A.l. wan OctolNT 13 (o.s. ), so that it was 



nt that tin- earth encountered the main swarm 

 of Lc.rtii'l- ab<iiit thiiN. il,iv- later in each century. 



From these facts l'lo|.--..l Newton deduced for the 



meteors an elliptic oibit. with a |TiiNl of ItVI 1 ^" 

 d.iv-. Other explanations were |>ossihlc, and that 



n by Schinpaiclli of Milan in IKfili finally 

 fled nil the condition*. Untreated the Leonids as 



Iving round the sun in a ]>rriod of 33J years, 

 the earth passing their orbit every year, but only 

 encountering the main swarm when it al-o was 

 ; tin- point of intersection. He also noted a 



remarkithle coincidence lietween this orhit and that 

 of Teni|M-rs comet svn in 1806. In fact, they wen' 

 identical, within the en or- of calculation. Other 

 similar cases were soon discovered. The LyraVds 



of April 'JO move in the track of a < et of 1S01 ; 



Hiela's comet agrees with the Andromeda meteors 

 of November '.'s : the August IVrseid- agree with 

 the bright comet of lHti'2 ; and now more than 

 tf Italy such cane!) of agreement are known, 

 which led 1'rofessor Tail of Kdinhiirgh to publi-h 

 the theory now generallv accepted which regards 

 comets as finmixtiiiif of meteoric swarms (see 

 CiiMKT). LiK-kyerin 188" showed by experiment 

 that the fragments of fallen meteors, glowing 

 in a very rare atmosphere, given off by themselves 

 when heated, give s]>cctra closely resembling li 

 of comets. It h;us also iM'en shown by the same 

 olwerver that what are practically the spectra of 

 nebula- can lie obtained from the same source. So 

 that he regards the feeble meteors of our nights as 

 the material of nehul.r and stare as the earliest 

 known form of matter (see Si \i:~i. This assumes 

 that our meteoric swarms are either remnants of 

 the original material of the Solar System (i|.v.), or 

 poit ion.- of the greater swarms of which all space 

 is full, which have been drawn within our solar 

 system by planetary influence. Levorrier has shown 

 that this latter explanation probably applies to the 

 August and November meteors already referred to, 

 ami that the- planet I'ranus has most likely cap- 

 tured these Uxlies and added them to our system. 

 The action of gravity would tend to draw out a 

 meteor swarm so that it would gradually spread 

 backwards and forwards until finally it would be 

 di-nihuted all along its track and form n closed 

 elliptic ring. As, then, the August meteors form 

 such a ring, while the Novemlier Leonids are 

 a marked swarm, Leverrier concluded that the 

 former had entered our system through the action 

 of Uranus much earlier than the latter. 



Some hundreds of ' radiants ' are now known, a 

 few of which we name, and the dales on which they 

 are active: (1) The Lyraitls, April 19 20; (2) the 

 Pcgasids, August 10; (3) the 1'erseiilx, August 9- 

 II ; (4) the Ain-iifii/.*, Sepu-mlier and Octobei ; (.">) 

 the Urianid*, October and Novemlicr; (ti) the 

 TauritU, November 1-15; (7) the Leunids, Novem- 

 ber 13-14 



For further information readers may consult Arago'i 

 fop. Aurmviiiiii ( Krvnch edition only), '/'< - /.' port <>i the 

 Hril.Aaoc.Comn: '-.i/x ('h:iniliers's IhxerifiUtt 



Attronomy, or Henchel's Outlinei of A ttronomy. 



Meter, GAS. See GAS-LIGHTING. 

 Methane. See DYEINO, Vol. IV., page 140. 



MHlindists. the name originally given, about 

 the year IT'-II. by a student of Christ Church to the 

 brothers \Vesley and several other young mi i< of 

 | a serious turn of mind, then memlicrs of different 

 colleges of Oxford, who used to assemble together 

 on particular nights of the week chielly for religious 

 conversation. The term was selected.il is lielieved, 

 in allusion to the exact and inillnHlirnl manner in 

 which they performed the various engagements 

 which a sense of Christian duty induced them to 

 undertake, such as meeting together for the pur- 

 pose of studying Scripture, visiting the |HMII. and 

 pii-oners in ( I \ford gaol, at regular intervals. Sub- 

 se<|Uently it came lo l>c applied to the followers of 

 Wesley and his coadjutors, when these had acipii red 

 (he magnitude of a new sect ; and though their 

 founder himself wished that 'the very name,' to 

 use his own words, 'might never lie mentioned 

 more, hut \- buried in eternal oblivion.' yet it has 

 finally com., to be accepted by most, if not all of 

 the various denominations who trace their origin 

 mediately or immediately to the great religious 

 movement commenced by John Wesley. For on 



