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

[MARK BOSTICK]

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)