Lab
Library
Journal
Shop
Sign in
to keep
1
210
The Fairy-Land of Science
·
Arabella B. Buckley
53
Most
people,
at
one
time
or
another,
have
seen
what
looks
like
a
star
shoot
right
across
the
sky,
and
disappear.
On
a
clear
starlight
night
you
may
often
see
one
or
more
of
these
bright
lights
flash
through
the
air;
for
one
falls
on
an
average
in
every
twenty
minutes,
and
on
the
nights
of
August
9th
and
November
13th
there
are
numbers
in
one
part
of
the
sky.
These
bodies
are
not
really
stars;
they
are
simply
stones
or
lumps
of
metal
flying
through
the
air,
and
taking
fire
by
clashing
against
the
atoms
of
oxygen
in
it.
There
are
great
numbers
of
these
masses
moving
round
and
round
the
sun,
and
when
our
earth
comes
across
their
path,
as
it
does
especially
in
August
and
November,
they
dash
with
such
tremendous
force
through
the
atmosphere
that
they
grow
white-hot,
and
give
out
light,
and
then
disappear,
melted
into
vapour.
Every
now
and
then
one
falls
to
the
earth
before
it
is
all
melted
away,
and
thus
we
learn
that
these
stones
contain
tin,
iron,
sulphur,
phosphorus,
and
other
substances.
It
is
while
these
bodies
are
burning
that
they
look
to
us
like
falling
stars,
and
when
we
see
them
we
know
that
hey
must
be
dashing
against
our
atmosphere.
Now
if
two
people
stand
a
certain
known
distance,
say
fifty
miles,
apart
on
the
earth
and
observe
these
meteors
and
the
direction
in
which
they
each
see
them
fall,
they
can
calculate
(by
means
of
the
angle
between
the
two
directions)
how
high
they
are
above
them
when
they
first
see
them,
and
at
that
moment
they
must
have
struck
against
the
atmosphere,
and
even
travelled
some
way
through
it,
to
become
white-hot.
In
this
way
we
have
learnt
that
meteors
burst
into
light
at
least
100
miles
above
the
surface
of
the
earth,
and
so
the
atmosphere
must
be
more
than
100
miles
high.
Marker
Marker
Fine marker
White-out
Fine white-out
Circle
Paint
Unmarker
Hand
Scalpel
Dice
Sieve
Purify
Undo
Redo
Start over
