Observations of falling stars have been used to determine roughly the average number of meteorites which attempt to pierce the earth’s atmosphere during each twenty-four hours. Dr. Schmidt, of Athens, from observations made during seventeen years, found that the mean hourly number of luminous meteors visible on a clear, moonless night by one observer was fourteen, taking the time of observation from midnight to 1 A.M. It has been further experimentally shown that a large group of observers who might include the whole horizon in their observations would see about six times as many as are visible to one eye. Prof. H. A. Newton and others have calculated that, making all proper corrections, the number which might be visible over the whole earth would be a little greater than 10,000 times as many as could be seen at one place. From this we gather that not less than 20,000,000 luminous meteors fall upon our planet daily, each of which in a dark clear night would present us with the well-known phenomenon of a shooting-star. This number, however, by no means represents the total number of minute meteorites that enter our atmosphere, because many entirely invisible to the naked eye are often seen in telescopes. It has been calculated that the number of meteorites, if these were included, would be increased at least twentyfold; this would give us 400,000,000 of meteorites falling in the earth’s atmosphere daily.—J. Norman Lockyer, Harper’s Magazine.
(1380)
Heavens, The—See [Privilege].
Height—See [Giants and Dwarfs]; [Upward Look].
Height Abolishing Burdens—See [Weight Diminished by Ascent].
HEIGHTS
The mind of Christ places and keeps us on the heights, lifting our consciousness from the seen to the unseen, and opening all our little restricted nature to the joyous rhythm of the universal life. What cowards we are when dominated by the seen. We dare not affirm anything beyond the reach of the eye, the sound of the ear, the touch of the finger-tips. But the beauties we see are only the reflection of the beauties that are, like Pluto’s artizans in the cave, catching only the reflected light from the realm above, the music we hear, the merest jingle of the melodies divine, the things we touch, the superficial, mechanical, material side of reality. Why can’t we believe that the unseen things which can be detected from the heights are those that are worth while, because the abiding, the eternal? Only on the heights can we dominate bodily conditions.—Robert MacDonald.
(1381)
Heights, In the—See [Confidence].
HEIGHTS, LIVING ON