METEORIC SHOWER OF NOVEMBER 13, 1833.
"The stars from Heaven like rain-drops from a bough.
Like tears they poured adown creation's face."
—Bailey.
"The great majority were white, with a bluish or yellowish tinge; a considerable number were red and orange; and a few were blue; many surpassed the fixed stars in lustre and some were even brighter than Venus—Most of the meteors left trains of vivid green light 5 degrees to 15 degrees in length, which marked their course through the heavens, and endured for 3 seconds on the average, then became dissipated; though some of the trains were almost 40 degrees in length, and remained in sight for several minutes." The shower of 1899 was quite naturally anticipated with much eagerness but it fell far short of the brilliant displays seen in 1866 and 1833.
The third shower listed, the Andromids, radiate from the orange-gold star on the foot of Andromeda during the last week in November. These are best seen during the evening. They are also called the Biela meteors and bring to mind the interesting history of the late Biela comet.
Many hundreds of these radiant points have now been discovered. The meteors which appear in a direct line to the eye, appear as points or stars; those appearing farthest from the center, other things being equal, appear to have the longest trails but their paths are all parallel. The illustration in perspective of the trains coming forward from a point on the horizon of a desert illustrates this clearly.
Meteors, which represent the wreckage which comets strew along their orbits, are not visible until they strike our atmosphere, which causes them to glow. They "glow" because they become white-hot, and they become white-hot because they have been rushing through space at planetary speed, and striking our atmosphere is like striking a match against a stone wall. The friction thus engendered causes the smaller particles to burst into flame and melt in a streak of fire, although the larger ones only melt on the outside, which is thrown off in a streaming tail of incandescent matter, the remainder of the meteor falling to the earth like a heavy rock. Thunders and visible explosions sometimes are heard as an accompaniment of the falling meteor. The meteors which fall to the ground are called "meteorites," or "ærolites," a literal translation of the latter term being "airstone." On an average, however, the individual bodies of a meteor swarm are very small, being represented by "a cloud of silver dimes each about 250 miles from its nearest neighbor." The smaller and lighter meteors called shooting stars which are consumed in our atmosphere probably number from 10 to 20 million daily.
Occasionally a meteorite found is very large, a few weighing several tons, but this is most unusual. The one brought by Commander Peary from Greenland is 11 feet long and 5 feet wide and weighs 36 tons. This is now on display in the Museum of Natural History in New York City. At Ensisheim, in Alsace, during the 15th century, a stone weighing 260 pounds which had descended from the sky was ordered by Emperor Maximilian to be suspended in the church where it hung for 300 years. A shower of nearly 3000 stones of various sizes occurred in Normandy within an elliptical area seven miles long and three miles wide. Nearly all the inhabitants of a large district saw the cloud and witnessed the rain of the stones.
The Greeks and Romans thought that casting stones upon the earth was some sort of pastime indulged in by the Gods and the Romans incorporated in a temple a shower of stones which fell on Alban Mount near Rome. A stone from Heaven was also reverenced in the masonry of the great Mosque of Mecca where it is annually kissed by thousands of pilgrims who begin holy rites by walking seven times around the Kaaba starting from the corner where the black stone is fixed. The great stone in the pyramid of Cholula, in Mexico, and a black stone at Emesa, in Syria, have also been regarded with religious veneration. In India, the residence of a soul in heaven is believed to be proportionate to its charities on earth, and when its allotted period is over, it falls to earth as a meteorite.