METEORS 



3755 



METER 



Related Subjects. The reader is referred to 

 the following articles in these volumes: 



Land and Sea Breezes 



Lightning 



Monsoon 



Norther 



Prevailing Westerlies 



Rain 



Simoom 



Sirocco 



Sriow 



Storms 



Trade Winds 



Typhoon 



Weather Bureau 



Whirlwind 



Wind 



Air 



Blizzard 



Chinook 



Climate 



Cloud 



Cyclone 



Dew 



Doldrums 



Flood 



Fog 



Frost 



Hail 



Humidity 



Hurricane 



Isobars 



Isothermal Lines 



METEORS, me'teorz, sometimes called 

 SHOOTING STARS, are bodies which from above 

 enter the atmosphere surrounding the earth 

 and in their descent become heated by the fric- 

 tion of the air. In many cases the heat gen- 

 erated is so great that the meteors are con- 

 sumed before reaching the earth.' Before these 

 meteors approach the earth's atmosphere they 

 are invisible, traveling in an orbit round the 

 sun. As soon as they touch the atmosphere 

 their temperature is raised about 600,000 de- 

 grees. This causes an immense evolution of 

 light, and meteors of the smallest proportions 

 appearing as merely pin points become visi- 

 ble in the form of light, which may last barely 

 a second, or sweep across the sky in a great 

 arc, leaving a luminous trail lasting for several 

 minutes. 



Some meteors vanish in dust and ashes at a 

 height of forty or fifty miles above the earth, 

 others reach to within five or ten miles, while 

 sometimes meteorites actually fall to the sur- 

 face of the earth; they sometimes "burst into 

 several fragments 

 with a noise that 

 may be heard for 

 some distance. 

 At certain periods 

 the earth encoun- 

 ters shoals of me- 

 teors, the sky ap- 

 parently being 

 filled with a show- 

 er of flying fires. 

 The most bril- 

 liant meteoric 

 shower recorded 

 occurred on November 13, 1833, and it is now 

 established that November is the month of 

 meteoric displays. Every November, about 

 the 13th, numbers of meteors become visible, 



Orbit of the earth and of a 

 meteor stream. 



and it is authoritatively stated that meteoric 

 showers are periodic, becoming extremely bril- 

 liant every thirty-third year. This is said to 

 be due to the fact that a great ring of irregu- 

 larly distributed particles revolves around the 

 sun continually and the earth passes through 

 the densest portion every third of a century. 



Among the meteorites known to have fallen 

 on the earth that are regarded as the most 

 interesting and important is a huge meteorite 

 weighing thirty-six and one-half tons brought 

 from his first trip from Western Greenland by 

 Peary, later the discoverer of the North Pole. 

 In the British Museum, London, is a meteorite 

 weighing three and one-half tons, and at Bacu- 

 birito in Mexico is a mass six feet wide and 

 five feet thick which weighs fifty tons. At 

 Knyahinya in Hungary a meteor weighing 547 

 pounds fell in 1886 and made a hole in the earth 

 eleven feet deep, while small meteors fell on 

 ice a few inches thick and rebounded. F.ST.A. 



ME'TER, the rhythmical arrangement of 

 words in poetry. A line, to be metrical, must 

 be divided into a certain number of sections 

 called feet which have the accent similarly 

 placed. In the ancient languages the meter 

 depended on the length of the vowels short 

 vowels must follow long, or vice versa, accord- 

 ing to a regular rule. In English, as in most 

 other modern languages, the vowel length has 

 nothing to do with the matter, which depends 

 entirely on the number of syllables and the 

 placing of the accent. Of the meters in use 

 in English the commonest are the iambic, in 

 which each foot consists of two syllables, an 

 unaccented followed by an accented, as: 



As i'/dle as'/a paint'/ed ship'; 



the trochaic, in which an accented syllable is 

 followed by an unaccented: 



Scots', wha/hae' with/Wal'-lace/bled' ; 



Jhe dactylic, which consists of an accented syl- 

 lable followed by two unaccented: 

 Hail' to the/Chief who in/tri'-umph ad/van'ces ; 



the anapestic, in which each foot has two short 



and one long syllable : 



And the night'/shall be Hlled'/with mus'/lc; 



and the amphibrachic, in which one accented 



syllable occurs between two unaccented: 



O hush' thee/my ba'-bie/thy sire' was/a knight'. 



There are very often irregularities in these 

 metrical forms, but every line of verse will be 

 found to conform more or less closely to one 



