CHAPTEK XVI. 



METEORS. 



Meteors are the tramps of interplanetary 

 space. They sometimes try to steal a ride on 

 the surface of the earth, but meet with certain 

 destruction the moment they come within the 

 aerial picket line of our world's defense 

 against these wandering vagrants of the air. 

 They have made many attempts to take this 

 earth by storm, as it were, and many more will 

 be made. They fire their missiles at us by the 

 millions every year with a speed that is in- 

 credible, but thanks to the protecting influ- 

 ence of the great ocean of air that envelops 

 our globe they become the victims of their own 

 velocity. 



Meteors or shooting stars are as old as the 

 earth itself, and they are the material of which 

 comets are made. Before it was determined 

 what these meteors or shooting stars were, 

 many theories were promulgated as to their 

 origin. One was that they were masses of 

 matter, large and small, projected by volcanic 

 action from the face of the moon with such 

 violence as to be brought within the attraction 



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