CHAPTER XV 

 MISTAKES CONCERNING METEORS 



A FEW informal manuscript notes on this matter were 

 sent to me in July, 1914, by Mr. W. F. Denning, of 

 Bishopston, Bristol, our leading authority on meteoric 

 science. " Many people hear, or fancy they hear," 

 he said, " hissing sounds accompanying meteors in 

 their flight. In certain cases the observer has stated 

 that, hearing a curious hissing sound, he looked up- 

 wards to ascertain the cause, and then recognised the 

 meteor." This does indeed seem remarkable, inas- 

 much as sound in ordinary air travels, he says, only 

 about 12 J miles in a minute. If the meteor did emit 

 any sound, the noise would be heard, probably, in 

 three or four minutes at the soonest. Yet it has often 

 astonished Mr. Denning to find how many people will 

 swear to having heard this hissing sound. It is one 

 of the greatest and most frequently repeated mis- 

 conceptions concerning meteors. I have not the 

 slightest doubt, however, that the observers were 

 honestly deceived. It is easy to be tricked by one's 

 own imagination. That is even more evident in the 

 case of those observers who fancy that the meteor 

 they have just seen has emitted a sulphurous odour. 

 This odour, however, must have travelled in some 

 instances at the rate of about fifty miles a second from 



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