. Elementary physical geography . ge shootingstars) enter the earths atmosphere at a high rate of speed, and are burned up?*•, 0/August Mehpre in the higher layers of the atmosphere,often at an eleva-tion as great as 100miles from the sur-face of the burning isthe result of fric-tion with the air, which produces a high heat, because inaddition to the movement of the meteor, there is oftenadded the motion of the earth itself, which is about 98,000feet a second. Hence in small bodies, the burning is almostinstantaneous; but some of the larger meteors pass entirelythrough the atmospher
. Elementary physical geography . ge shootingstars) enter the earths atmosphere at a high rate of speed, and are burned up?*•, 0/August Mehpre in the higher layers of the atmosphere,often at an eleva-tion as great as 100miles from the sur-face of the burning isthe result of fric-tion with the air, which produces a high heat, because inaddition to the movement of the meteor, there is oftenadded the motion of the earth itself, which is about 98,000feet a second. Hence in small bodies, the burning is almostinstantaneous; but some of the larger meteors pass entirelythrough the atmosphere, and reach the earths surface. A study of these rather rare meteorites, reveals to us thevery interesting fact that no new element exists in them;and therefore we may fairly conclude that the elementscomposing comets are the same as some of those which makeup the earths crust. In watching the heavens at night,scarcely an hour can pass without noticing shooting stars;and since the same would probably be true of the day if we. Fig. of the second comet of 1862. THE EARTH AS A PLANET. 17 could then see them, we conclude that there are immensenumbers of these bodies in the space through which the earthtravels. The Stellar System.— Far away in space, many timesfarther than the sun is from us, innumerable stars arescattered. Already many thousands are known, and it isestimated that over 30,000,000 are visible with the the sun, they emit an energy which produces bothlight and heat; and it is very probable that many, ifnot all, have planetary bodies revolving about satellite, that belonging to Sirius, has already been dis-covered ; and some doublestars are known to be re-volving about a commoncenter of gravity. Thedistance between the stars,and even between the earthand the nearest stars, is im-mense, and in most cases in-calculable. If each star isa sun with accompanyingplanets, and if each of thesesuns is as far from its near-est stellar neighbor
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