230 Canadian Record of Science. 



hardly have a possible existence. The surface of solid 

 meteorites is burned or melted away when brought in con- 

 tact with the air at a similar velocity, while the experi- 

 ments of M. Daubre'e and the well known effects of dynamite 

 well show the enormous resistance such gaseous bodies 

 would have to encounter, and only a solid body could be 

 conceived of under such conditions as obtain in the flight of 

 a meteorite. 



Again, we may reasonably believe that the bodies that 

 cause the shooting stars, the large fireballs and the stone- 

 producing meteor, all belong to one class. They differ in 

 kind of material, in density, in size. But from the faintest 

 shooting star to the largest stone-meteor, we pass by such 

 small gradations that no clear dividing lines can separate 

 them into classes. 



See wherein they are alike. 



1. Each appears as a ball of fire traversing the appar- 

 ent heavens, just as a single solid, but glowing or burning 

 mass would do. 



2. Bach is seen in the same part of the atmosphere 

 and moves through its upper portion. The stones come to 

 the ground, it is true, but the brightly luminous portion of 

 their paths generally ends high up in the air. 



3. Each has a velocity which implies an orbit about the sun. 



4. The members of each class have apparent motions 

 which imply common relations to the horizon, to the 

 ecliptic, and to the line of the earth's motion. 



5. A cloudy train is sometimes left along the track 

 both of the stone-meteor and of the shooting star. 



6. " They have like varieties of colors, though in the 

 small meteors the colors are naturally less intense and are 

 not so variously combined as in the large ones. 



In short, if the bodies that produce the various kinds of 

 fireballs had just the difference in size and material which 

 we find in meteorites, all the differences in the appearances 

 would be explained ; while, on the other hand, a part of the 

 likenesses that characterize the nights, point to something 

 common in the astronomical relations of the bodies that 

 produce them. 



