A HISTORY OF SCIENCE 



up the argument for the telluric origin for some dec- 

 ades to come, as a matter of course such a band trails 

 always in the rear of progress. But even these doubt- 

 ers were silenced when the great shower of shooting- 

 stars appeared again in 1866, as predicted by Olbers 

 and Newton, radiating from the same point of the 

 heavens as before. 



Since then the spectroscope has added its confirm- 

 atory evidence as to the identity of meteorite and shoot- 

 ing-star, and, moreover, has linked these atmospheric 

 meteors with such distant cosmic residents as comets 

 and nebulae. Thus it appears that Chladni's daring 

 hypothesis of 1794 has been more than verified, and 

 that the fragments of matter dissociated from plan- 

 etary connection which he postulated and was de- 

 clared atheistic for postulating have been shown to 

 be billions of times more numerous than any larger 

 cosmic bodies of which we have cognizance so widely 

 does the existing universe differ from man's precon- 

 ceived notions as to what it should be. 



Thus also the "miracle" of the falling stone, against 

 which the scientific scepticism of yesterday presented 

 "an evil heart of unbelief," turns out to be the most 

 natural phenomena, inasmuch as it is repeated in our 

 atmosphere some millions of times each day. 



THE AURORA BOREALIS 



If fire-balls were thought miraculous and portentous 

 in days of yore, what interpretation must needs have 

 been put upon that vastly more picturesque phenom- 

 enon, the aurora? "Through all the city," says the 

 Book of Maccabees, "for the space of almost forty days, 



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