Show JUST WHY FIERY METEORS BOMBARD THE TI-IF FART EARM r I J S c Y y d dM rl r J l l M 11 rL i I 0 I The I L J. J The Ton 36 Meteorite I Brought ht from front Greenland b by r Admiral Peary Is a Huge Mass of Ore 11 Feet Long and 5 6 Feet Wide The fall which t occurred at nt Sol Serbia about 2 P. P M. M ii Oct 13 1877 was according to Prof Farrington introduced introduce by two explosions like salvos of art artillery accompanied b by a brilliant display of Ii light ht such as attends the bursting of shells A dense black smoke e was observed at a considerable altitude and this broke up into three columns which gradually changed to a white smoke emoke The noise lasted for some time and re resembled resembled re re- the firing of musketry Soon after alter tho the first sound a number of meteorites fell over anarea an anarea anarea area a n mile and a half in length an and a mile half-mile in breadth The largest o of these weighed 84 pound pounds The meteoritic shower which occurred near New Concord 0 about 1230 P. P M M. May Maj 1 1860 1800 was introduced by a strange and terrible report in inthe inthe in inthe the heavens which shook the houses for many miles about A very very impressive fall occurred at Homestead la Ia on the night of Feb 12 1875 1876 A meteor was seen in the sky EO so bright that the li light ht could hardly be tolerated by the naked eye turned full upon it The meteor and its train were tinged tinge with v prismatic colors and sparks were thrown off as 33 the body sped through the sky This display display display dis dis- play was followed ed by a deafening explosion which m r became a rushing rumbling and crashing sound The reverberations seemed to shake the earth to its foundations foundation buildings quaked and rattled and people believed that an earthquake was in progress Leaving Leming the thc a astronomical problems connected connect d with meteors out of the question there is n no mystery about these phenomena according to a ariter writer riter in the Scientific American A body of matter entering the earths earth's atmosphere from outer space is intensely heated at its surface by bythe bythe bythe the friction of the air and hence becomes lumin lumin- ous To quote from Prof Farrington ton The slowing up of a meteorite by the resi resistance resist t- t ante ance of or the air exerts exert a powerful po disruptive force upon unon it since the rear of the meteorite tends to travel with a planetary velocity while the forward forward for- for checked cheked Thus Hauser calculated cal edl- l- l ward vard part is being c cut that a meteorite having a n volume of a n acut cubic meter and bein being a n square meter to in section would if moving at a velocity of 30 miles per second develop an internal disruptive force of nearly 3 meters kilogram-meters on arriving within 16 miles of the earths earth's surface These figures suffice to explain why way meteorites meteorites meteor meteor- commonly burst into fragments before ites ices s so o reaching the ground Lastly the noise attend attend- tag ing the fall fau of a meteorite is mainly occasioned wl by theand the sudden heating of the air along ry its path and is therefore analogous to thunder The pro- pro rumbling often reported is as in the case Ml of thunder thunder occasioned by the fact act that sound the air nir being outstripped travels vMs slowly through air itself so EO that the thc sound from tho the the meteor by byne arts of the meteors meteor's path reaches the tho thor ne nearer than that from irom more distant sooner observer r arts ot of the path P parts illumination and tremendous noise nobe Br Brilliant not necessarily indicate that a very large largo do fallen to the earth bo body has The largest individual meteorite known is the tho Cape Tine Cafe York meteorite brought by Admiral Peary from rom Greenland in 1897 and now prein pre- pre served if in the Amerl American n Museum of Natural His His- New York city I It weighs 36 tons to ri The Peary meteor it will be recalled is so large farce and nd h heavy avy that the admiral was mito un un- unable unable able to bring it home bome with him when he first discovered it but had to organize a later expedition expedition expedition tion with special equipment for handling this mass of iron Yet it weighed more than this when it fell since the natives of a goodly portion portion portion por por- tion of Greenland had been using it for centuries centuries centuries cen cen- as 15 a source of raw material for arrow tips This huge stone shown in the accompanying illus illus- illustration illustration is 10 feet 11 inches in extreme length and 5 feet 2 inches through at its thickest point poin It is still a mooted question whether larger meteorite than any of th e e a m feet in diameter diameter- produced diameter produced the r remarkable Possibly tion at Canyon Diablo to 10 Arizona won variously k as IS Coon Butte Crater Mound aid and Meteor kraal I dater Crater This is is a 3 circular depression about feet fV diameter and f feet get deep occurring in the sur face lace of an oth otherwise comparatively level ui play plaiD There are arc no positive evidences S hero of V vol voles an action n and on the other hand thousands thousand of fro meteorites have been found about tho the craS crate weighing in the aggregate several tons w wi i mr |