724 METEORIC S TONES AND SHOO TIN G STA RS. 



influences of the one to the other. That the atmosphere supports life — at 

 the bottom of the seas as in the air itself. That it not only surrounds the 

 earth, but permeates it, imparting life and drawing life to itself, and that 

 the influence evolved in the one is felt in the other, and that both reach out 

 to their sister elements in the great family of the solar system. 



This being so, the phenomena we see — of heat, cold, clouds, rain, calm 

 and storm, the winds and the tornado, all flow from the manifestations of 

 the life of the system itself — the revelations of the life currents of earth, 

 whose results we see in them, and whence we know they exist — but which 

 itself we cannot know, or have been unable as yet to discover or fully 

 underbtand. 



That the heat of the sun is a powerful factor in all this life, admits of no 

 doubt, but that this globe has within it energies of its own, we may say lat- 

 ent heat of its own, which acts responsive, is beyond the power of mind or 

 intelligence to doubt. 



METEORIC STONES AND SHOOTING STARS. 

 BY PROP. G. C. BROADHEAD, PLEASANT HILL, MO. 



The phenomenon of Falling Stars or Meteoric Showers, and Aerolites or 

 Meteoric Stones and Bolides, is one that is least understood of celestial phe- 

 nomena, yet one that is near us and at all times interesting to the scientist. 

 They flash before our vision with dazzling brilliancy, apparently burst and 

 disappear. Some are gaseous and of course transparent, others are solid, as 

 the Bolides, 



Meteoric Stones are liable to fall at any time, but at certain periods of 

 time shooting stars are more likely to be seen. Every year about the 10th 

 of August, a shower of meteors is seen that appears to proceed from the 

 constellation Perseus. Another period of the 12th and 13th days of Novem- 

 ber, after thirty-three years, and for three years thereafter, at which time 

 they apparently proceed from the Constellation Leo. The next periodic 

 appearance of the November shower will be in the year 1900. 



Besides these two principal showers, it is estimated that there are nearly 

 one hundred others recurring at regular intervals, and each a cosmical 

 cloud of dark bodies, loosely held together and circulating around the Sun 

 in a common orbit* 



Schiapparelli, Le Verrier and others, give as their conclusions, that me- 

 teors are fragmentary masses revolving like the planets round the Sun in a 

 regular orbit, which, in its course, approaches the orbit of the Earth, which 

 is intersected by their orbit at this regular period, and are drawn by its 

 attraction into our atmosphere, and are there set set on flre by heat gene- 

 rated by the resistance offered by the compressed air. 



Schiapparelli also came to the conclusion that the same object at one 



* Schellen. 



