Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 1.djvu/401

Rh light; under similar circumstances a lead bullet becomes partially melted. The heat of a body consists in the vibratory motion of its smallest particles; an increase of this molecular motion is synonymous with a higher temperature; a lessening of this vibration is termed decreasing heat, or the process of cooling. Now, if a body in motion, as for instance a cannon-ball, strike against an iron plate, or a meteorite against the earth's atmosphere, in proportion as the motion of the body diminishes and the external action of the moving mass becomes annihilated by the pressure of the opposing medium upon the foremost molecules, the vibration of these particles increases; this motion is immediately communicated to the rest of the mass, and by the acceleration of this vibration through all the particles the temperature of the body is raised. This phenomenon, which always takes place when the motion of a body is interrupted, is designated by the expression the conversion of the motion of the mass into molecular action or heat; it is a law without exception that, where the external motion of the mass is diminished, an inner action among its particles, or heat, is set up in its place as an equivalent, and it may be easily supposed that, even in the highest and most rarefied strata of the earth's atmosphere, the velocity of the meteorite would be rapidly diminished by its opposing action, so that shortly after entering our atmosphere the vibration of the inner particles would become accelerated to such a degree as to raise them to a white heat, when they would either become partially fused, or, if the meteorite were sufficiently small, it would be dissipated into vapor, and leave a luminous track behind it of glowing vapors.

Haidinger, in a theory embracing all the phenomena of meteorites, explains the formation of a ball of fire round the meteor, by supposing that the meteorite, in consequence of its rapid motion through the atmosphere, presses the air before it till it becomes luminous. The compressed air in which the solid particles of the surface of the meteorite glow then rushes on all sides, but especially over the surface of the meteor behind it, where it encloses a pear-shaped vacuum which has been left by the meteorite, and so appears to the observer as a ball of fire. If several bodies enter the earth's atmosphere in this way at the same time, the largest among them precedes the others, because the air offers the least resistance to its proportionately smallest surface; the rest follow in the track of the first meteor, which is the only one surrounded by a ball of fire. When by the resistance of the air the motion of the meteor is arrested, it remains for a moment perfectly still; the ball of fire is extinguished, the surrounding air rushes suddenly into the vacuum behind the meteor, which, left solely to the action of gravitation, falls vertically to the earth. The loud, detonating noise usually accompanying this phenomenon finds an easy explanation in the violent concussion of the air behind the meteor, while the generally-received theory, that the detonating noise is the result of an explosion or bursting of the meteorite, does not meet with any confirmation.