OTING STARS.

Small Bodies of our System--Their Numbers--How they are
Observed--The Shooting Star--The Theory of Heat--A Great Shooting
Star--The November Meteors--Their Ancient History--The Route
followed by the Shoal--Diagram of the Shoal of Meteors--How the
Shoal becomes Spread out along its Path--Absorption of Meteors by
the Earth--The Discovery of the Relation between Meteors and
Comets--The Remarkable Investigations concerning the November
Meteors--Two Showers in Successive Years--No Particles have ever
been Identified from the Great Shooting Star Showers--Meteoric
Stones--Chladni's Researches--Early Cases of Stone-falls--The
Meteorite at Ensisheim--Collections of Meteorites--The Rowton
Siderite--Relative Frequency of Iron and Stony
Meteorites--Fragmentary Character of Meteorites--Tschermak's
Hypothesis--Effects of Gravitation on a Missile ejected from a
Volcano--Can they have come from the Moon?--The Claims of the Minor
Planets to the Parentage of Meteorites--Possible Terrestrial
Origin--The Ovifak Iron.

In the preceding chapters we have dealt with the gigantic bodies which
form the chief objects in what we know as the solar system. We have
studied mighty planets measuring thousands of miles in diameter, and we
have followed the movements of comets whose dimensions are often to be
told by millions of miles. Once, indeed, in a previous chapter we have
made a descent to objects much lower in the scale of magnitude, and we
have examined that numerous class of small bodies which we call the
minor planets. It is now, however, our duty to make a still further, and
this time a very long step, downwards in the scale of magnitude. Even
the minor planets must be regarded as colossal objects when compared
with those little bodies whose presence is revealed to us in an
interesting and sometimes in a striking manner.

These small bodies compensate in some degree for their minute size by
the profusion in which they exist. No attempt, indeed, could be made to
tell in figures the myriads in which they swarm throughout space. They
are probably of very varied dimensions, some of them being many pounds
or perhaps tons in weight, while others seem to be not larger than
pebbles, or even than grains of sand. Yet, insignificant as these bodies
may seem, the sun does not disdain to undertake their control. Each
particle, whether it be as small as