[meteorite-list] NPA 07-30-1874 Professor on comets, meteorites, their origins, et al

From: MARK BOSTICK <thebigcollector_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Fri Jan 7 01:42:03 2005
Message-ID: <BAY4-F8AE9A9060F870F9FFCAA3B3940_at_phx.gbl>

Paper: The Hamilton Examiner
City: Hamilton, Ohio
Date: Thursday, July 30, 1874
Page: 2

THAT NORTHERN BUGABOO.

Another Learned Professor Speculating About Dreadful Possibilities.

     "But you know, Professor, from the time of the Pope's bull against the
comet appearance of one of those celestial strangers, bushwhackers, has been
by all nations and tribes of men regarded as a sign and a warning of war,
pestilence, or famine, or droughts, or inundations, or hurricanes or
earthquakes, and may there not be something in this universal opinion?"
    "Science asks for the demonstration."
    "Very good. Has not every comet that has appeared of which we have any
record been followed in the year of its appearance, or within a year or two
from its departure, by some one of these aforesaid disasters in almost every
nation on the face of the earth?"
     "Perhaps so; but if so, what does all this prove? Nothing. There is
really, sir, no mischief in these comets. They are mere specters, which may
frighten many people, but which harm nobody; but when you come to meteorites
or aerolites, as they are frequently called, there is a possibility of
disastrous consequences. By the way, have you seen our splendid Arizona
meteorite?"

THE ARIZONA METEORITE

     "Yes, sir, we have just been inspecting it, and a great curiosity it
is; but how did you get it?"
     The Professor said in answer to this and numerous other questions, that
the meteorite is from Arizona; that it weighs 1,400 pounds, and is composed
of iron and nickel, that tradition says that some two hundred years ago, and
all the people in Tucson, Arizona believe it, a shower of these meteorites
fell in the Santa Catharine Mountains, north of Tucson, and that there were
plenty of them remaining in those mountains. Dr. Irwin, a surgeon of our
navy, to whom, and some other gentlemen, the Smithsonian Institution is
greatly indebted for this meteorite, thinks that the shower of meteorites
come from a volcanic eruption; but as other meteorites have fallen far from
the range of any volcano is different parts of the world, this Arizona
monster may be an intruder upon our planet.
     The writer believes that it is. This meteorite is in the shape of a
very rough, jagged, and unequal ring, very thick around two-thirds of the
circle, and quite thin for the other third. It looks as if it had come
whirling down from the skies in the form of a ring, and in the state of
liquid fire, and its tough and jagged appearance was caused by its contact
with the earth. Its appears, too, as if it had been the setting of a stone
which had fallen out. Perhaps it was, and the fragments of the stone may
have dropped out of the original lifting of the stone from the ground.

THE THEORY OF THE ASTEROIDS

     But what has this to do with the comet? Much. Comets are supposed to be
planets or asteroids in embryo. There are within our solar system, and
mostly between the earth and Jupiter, many asteroids or little planets
invisible to the naked eye, and there are believed to be many invisible with
the aid of the most powerful telescope or comet seeker. It is believed that
this shower of meteorites was nothing less than the fragments of one of
these little asteroids, which coming within the attractive grasp of the
earth, was brought down, and in its passage through our atmosphere took fire
and was broken - when heated to the condition of liquid iron - into the
fragments which formed the Arizona shower of meteorites.
     Now, this comet, light, gaseous, transparent, and attenuated as it now
appears, may harden ultimately into a small asteroid, and in the course of
time it may be drawn to the earth, as was this asteroid in Arizona, and if
its burning fragments should fall upon some great city - New York, for
example - a shower of iron and nickel in a fluid state, great will be the
conflagration that will immediately ensue.

THE LESSON OF THE COMET

     This is the lesson suggested by this great meteorite of the Smithsonian
Museum in connection with this comet. The comet may now be "too thin" to do
much mischief even should it strike the earth; but after a while it may
harden into a solid little globe and we may never hear of it again till it
strikes the earth as a shower of meteorites, equal, perhaps, to a million of
tons of iron, nickel, copper, and volcanic rocks more or less. How can we
reach any exact estimate of such things? The telescope, nor will the
spectrum analyze it. To arrive at their exact elements and proportions we
must wait till they come.

DREADFUL POSSIBILITIES

     But there may be more immediate danger than this from this comet, is an
interloper between the earth and the sun. This comet obeys the laws of
gravitation, and possesses, apparently, a great attractive power.
Accordingly, in getting among these invisible asteroids, or aerolites,
hanging along the earth's orbit and inside it, it may draw within the
earth's attraction and down upon the earth a shower of meteorites, and from
their decent Philadelphia may be covered with a mountain of iron, or Chicago
may be sunk in Lake Michigan, or left high and dry 100 miles inland. - From
interview with Prof. Henry in N.Y. Herald.

(end)
Received on Fri 07 Jan 2005 01:41:22 AM PST