1 8 NATURE NOTES 
velocity, considering the small distance they penetrate into it? and why do they 
explode at all ? 
If meteoric stones fall from the sky, what an extraordinary circumstance it is 
that they do not fall down upon human beings, or any cattle or animals, or upon 
any houses, or roads, or pavements. They are almost always found in fields, or 
gardens, or parks, tkc., a very short distance under the surface. 
Mr. Fletcher compares the path and velocity of “meteoric” stones with that 
of a cannon ball from a gun, but there is no analogy or comparison between the 
two. The gun is placed at an upward angle to the earth’s surface, and the ball, 
as it proceeds, continues to make the angle with the earth’s surface greater until 
it begins to fall, the ball having had to contend and struggle not only with the 
resistance of the air but also with the force of gravity, which has been retarding 
and stopping its speed. The meteorite, on the other hand, has been coming 
towards the earth. It has not been forced away from it, and has had the force 
of gravity entirely in its favour. 
Mr. Fletcher says, “ In the Hessle fall, several stones fell on the ice, which 
was only a few inches thick and rebounded, without either breaking the ice or 
being broken themselves.” How could these stones have come from the sky, 
having as they had, such a slight velocity that they could neither break the ice 
nor themselves ? IIow much more likely that they were ejected through the air, 
Irom a stone that exploded just beneath the earth’s surface. 
Mr. Fletcher, on page 25, says that luminous meteors have been mistaken for 
lightning, and their explosion for thunder ; I believe that it is exactly the reverse. 
Shooting Stars ami Comets . — The hypothesis that the luminous meteors or 
“ shooting stars ” which we see within the atmosphere of our earth are solid 
bodies, I regard as a wild and absurd theory, without an atom of proof. These 
luminous meteors generally leave a trail of light behind them and then vanish 
into our air, showing that they are composed of luminous gas, which is gradually 
absorbed by the atmosphere. 
I think that there is undoubted proof that meteors, or “ shooting stars,” are 
Comets which have become divided up into a vast number of very small portions, 
which are always luminous, but invisible to 11s on account of their smallness, until 
they cross the eaith’s path and come near us through our atmosphere, and 
afterwards become eventually dissolved in our air. 
That which rendered the supposition that a swarm of meteors is a comet 
broken up into small fragments, to be a fact quite beyond question, resulted from 
the following observations : The orbit of Biela’s well known comet having been 
ascertained, and the time of its revolution round the sun found to be about six 
and a-half years, and the time of its crossing the earth’s orbit ascertained, it was 
looked for in the year 1845, when it was found to have changed to two comets 
close together, the one being larger than the other. They both had tails. The 
smaller threw out a second tail. Then the larger showed two nuclei and two 
tails. Afterwards it showed three tails and three cometary fragments were 
visible round its nucleus. When a comet shows two or three tails it is quite 
evident that it is in the act of dividing itself into two or three comets. In 1852, 
only two comets were at that time visible, separated from one another by a great 
distance, the one being ahead of the other. The rest had probably got divided 
up until they were too small to be seen. What caused the one comet to travel 
faster than the other has not been explained. They were still going in the orbit 
of Biela’s comet. Since that date they have never been seen, but in the mean- 
time astronomers suspecting there was some connection between comets and 
shooting stars, on November 2 7, 1872, which was one of the times when these 
comets were due to appear, there appeared in their stead a dense shower of 
shooting stars, travelling in the same orbit that Biela’s comet had done. They 
had not been seen until that comet had failed to perform his accustomed journey. 
Again, on November 27, 1885, another dense shower was observed coming from 
the same orbit. 
Mr. Fletcher says in his book referred to, that “ Stars of very small magnitude 
have been seen not only through the tail, but even through the nucleus of a comet, 
without any apparent alteration of position by refraction.” This, I consider, is 
very strong evidence — indeed to my mind it is satisfactory proof — that a comet 
consists of transparent gas. The tendency of comets to divide into parts is also a 
