2*4 W STARRY REALMS. 



to accomplish. If the weight of the missile were greater 

 than one pound, the velocity remaining the same, the 

 available energy would be increased in the same propor- 

 tion. For example, if the meteor weighed ten pounds, 

 one hundred pounds, or one thousand pounds, it would 

 discharge as much energy as could be awakened by the 

 detonation of ten tons, of one hundred tons, or of one 

 thousand tons of gunpowder. Need we wonder, then, 

 that gorgeous lights and that majestic thunders have 

 occasion ally accompanied the annihilation of large 

 meteors ? 



There is another instructive method for obtaining a due 

 estimate of the potency of a meteor to produce tremendous 

 effects notwithstanding its comparatively small size. In 

 our present illustration we shall employ that great source 

 of energy which is familiar in the steam-engine. Let us 

 think of a powerful steamship, the engines of which have, 

 let us say, 8,200 horse-power. Let us conceive such 

 appropriate mechanism as would permit, the Titanic power 

 of these engines to be concentrated on the single duty of 

 imparting velocity to a small piece of matter one pound in 

 weight. It can then be shown that the piece of matter 

 would, after the lapse of sixty seconds, have acquired a 

 meteoric speed. So long as the meteor retained that 

 speed it would retain the energy the engine had given to 

 it, nor could the meteor surrender its rapid motion except 

 the energy were transformed into some other form. li 

 then the meteor lost its speed by piercing its way for a 

 minute through our atmosphere it would reproduce all the 

 energy that 8,200 horse-power can exert in the same time. 



Suppose that in the elevated regions of our atmosphere 



