A History of Science-3 [68]
urging that the aerolites were neither of telluric nor selenitic origin, nor yet children of the sun, as the old Greeks had, many of them, contended, but that they are visitants from the depths of cosmic space. This bold speculator was the distinguished German physicist Ernst F. F. Chladni, a man of no small repute in his day. As early as 1794 he urged his cosmical theory of meteorites, when the very existence of meteorites was denied by most scientists. And he did more: he declared his belief that these falling stones were really one in origin and kind with those flashing meteors of the upper atmosphere which are familiar everywhere as "shooting-stars."
Each of these coruscating meteors, he affirmed, must tell of the ignition of a bit of cosmic matter entering the earth's atmosphere. Such wandering bits of matter might be the fragments of shattered worlds, or, as Chladni thought more probable, merely aggregations of "world stuff" never hitherto connected with any large planetary mass.
Naturally enough, so unique a view met with very scant favor. Astronomers at that time saw little to justify it; and the non-scientific world rejected it with fervor as being "atheistic and heretical," because its acceptance would seem to imply that the universe is not a perfect mechanism.
Some light was thrown on the moot point presently by the observations of Brandes and Benzenberg, which tended to show that falling-stars travel at an actual speed of from fifteen to ninety miles a second. This observation tended to discredit the selenitic theory, since an object, in order to acquire such speed in falling merely from the moon, must have been projected with an initial velocity not conceivably to be given by any lunar volcanic impulse. Moreover, there was a growing conviction that there are no active volcanoes on the moon, and other considerations of the same tenor led to the complete abandonment of the selenitic theory.
But the theory of telluric origin of aerolites was by no means so easily disposed of. This was an epoch when electrical phenomena were exciting unbounded and universal interest, and there was a not unnatural tendency to appeal to electricity in explanation of every obscure phenomenon; and in this case the seeming similarity between a lightning flash and the flash of an aerolite lent color to the explanation. So we find Thomas Forster, a meteorologist of repute, still adhering to the atmospheric theory of formation of aerolites in his book published in 1823; and, indeed, the prevailing opinion of the time seemed divided between various telluric theories, to the neglect of any cosmical theory whatever.
But in 1833 occurred a phenomenon which set the matter finally at rest. A great meteoric shower occurred in November of that year, and in observing it Professor Denison Olmstead, of Yale, noted that all the stars of the shower appeared to come from a single centre or vanishing-point in the heavens, and that this centre shifted its position with the stars, and hence was not telluric. The full significance of this observation was at once recognized by astronomers; it demonstrated beyond all cavil the cosmical origin of the shooting-stars. Some conservative meteorologists kept up the argument for the telluric origin for some decades to come, as a matter of course--such a band trails always in the rear of progress. But even these doubters were silenced when the great shower of shooting- stars appeared again in 1866, as predicted by Olbers and Newton, radiating from the same point of the heavens as before.
Since then the spectroscope has added its confirmatory evidence as to the identity of meteorite and shooting-star, and, moreover, has linked these atmospheric meteors with such distant cosmic residents as comets and nebulae. Thus it appears that Chladni's daring hypothesis of 1794 has been more than verified, and that the fragments of matter dissociated from planetary connection--which be postulated and was declared atheistic for postulating--have been shown to be billions of times more numerous than any larger cosmic
Each of these coruscating meteors, he affirmed, must tell of the ignition of a bit of cosmic matter entering the earth's atmosphere. Such wandering bits of matter might be the fragments of shattered worlds, or, as Chladni thought more probable, merely aggregations of "world stuff" never hitherto connected with any large planetary mass.
Naturally enough, so unique a view met with very scant favor. Astronomers at that time saw little to justify it; and the non-scientific world rejected it with fervor as being "atheistic and heretical," because its acceptance would seem to imply that the universe is not a perfect mechanism.
Some light was thrown on the moot point presently by the observations of Brandes and Benzenberg, which tended to show that falling-stars travel at an actual speed of from fifteen to ninety miles a second. This observation tended to discredit the selenitic theory, since an object, in order to acquire such speed in falling merely from the moon, must have been projected with an initial velocity not conceivably to be given by any lunar volcanic impulse. Moreover, there was a growing conviction that there are no active volcanoes on the moon, and other considerations of the same tenor led to the complete abandonment of the selenitic theory.
But the theory of telluric origin of aerolites was by no means so easily disposed of. This was an epoch when electrical phenomena were exciting unbounded and universal interest, and there was a not unnatural tendency to appeal to electricity in explanation of every obscure phenomenon; and in this case the seeming similarity between a lightning flash and the flash of an aerolite lent color to the explanation. So we find Thomas Forster, a meteorologist of repute, still adhering to the atmospheric theory of formation of aerolites in his book published in 1823; and, indeed, the prevailing opinion of the time seemed divided between various telluric theories, to the neglect of any cosmical theory whatever.
But in 1833 occurred a phenomenon which set the matter finally at rest. A great meteoric shower occurred in November of that year, and in observing it Professor Denison Olmstead, of Yale, noted that all the stars of the shower appeared to come from a single centre or vanishing-point in the heavens, and that this centre shifted its position with the stars, and hence was not telluric. The full significance of this observation was at once recognized by astronomers; it demonstrated beyond all cavil the cosmical origin of the shooting-stars. Some conservative meteorologists kept up the argument for the telluric origin for some decades to come, as a matter of course--such a band trails always in the rear of progress. But even these doubters were silenced when the great shower of shooting- stars appeared again in 1866, as predicted by Olbers and Newton, radiating from the same point of the heavens as before.
Since then the spectroscope has added its confirmatory evidence as to the identity of meteorite and shooting-star, and, moreover, has linked these atmospheric meteors with such distant cosmic residents as comets and nebulae. Thus it appears that Chladni's daring hypothesis of 1794 has been more than verified, and that the fragments of matter dissociated from planetary connection--which be postulated and was declared atheistic for postulating--have been shown to be billions of times more numerous than any larger cosmic