192 HA. Newton on the Meteor of November, 1859. 
2nd. From the moment the meteor entered the atmosphere, it 
would lose velocity. The resistance which the air offers to s0 
rapid a motion, is enormous. If meteorites be admitted to come 
in general from meteors, it may be added that they rarely enter 
the ground more than two or three feet. They do not strike the 
earth with a velocity at all comparable to that which meteors are 
known to have, in the higher regions. They lose almost all their 
velocity in passing through the atmosphere. 
careful examination of all these observations leads me to 
believe that the actual velocity was as great as 86 miles a second. 
lf we consider the resistance of the air, and then make as large 
n allowance for errors of observation as can reasonably be 
made, it seems almost impossible that it could have entere the 
atmosphere with a velocity Jess than twenty-one miles. 
parts of the earth directly under the meteor, were by the earth’s 
motion in its orbit, and on its axis, moving in a line inclined 
89° 31’ to the path of the meteor, with the velocity of 19-028 
miles. If the velocity of the meteor in this path was 21, its ve- 
locity relative to the sun would then be a little more than 
miles. If the meteor had been moving in a parabolic orbit 
around the sun, it would have had from the combined action © 
the earth and sun, a velocity of 27-9 miles a second. If, there 
fore, as I think, can hardly be doubted, the meteor entered the 
atmosphere with a velocity not less than 21 miles, i must have 
been moving in a hyperbolic orbit. 
_We have been accustomed to consider the solar system as filled 
with small planetoids, millions of which, each day, come into the 
atmosphere, and are burnt up, causing the shooting stars. 0 
we find that we must, in all probability, add one, and no doubt 
innumerable other similar bodies to the stellar spaces. It 
anew view of creation. ee 
It must not hence be imagined, that the meteors and shooting 
stars all come from the stellar spaces. The periodicity of the 
pee plainly that they are from 
_ The recent researches, respecting the transformation of motion 
into heat, throw some light on the subject of shooting 
eae 
es 
Aagli Rg 
