Sir Robert Ball's lecture on shooting stars at the Birkbeck
Institute on Wednesday formed an excellent illustration of the Bishop of Ripon's remark, a propos of the achievements of modern science, that "we can read the hidden things of life and survey the secret things which the eye of the eagle hath not seen." Sir Robert Ball assured his readers that on a most moderate computation scores of tons of meteoric matter were added each day to the previous mass of the earth. Meteoric particles were found on Alpine snows, in Atlantic ooze, in the motes of the sunbeam. " Grains of corn owed something to the gentle rain of meteoric matter, as well as to the gentle rains of a more familiar description. The loaf as it came to the table contained within it particles which had voyaged for uncounted thousands of centuries of time
through illimitable millions of miles of space. Thus to pro- vide the actual material of our bodily frame, the remotest realms of space had been laid under contribution. The life of every one present was at that moment in intimate associa- tion with particles that had been brought thither by shooting stars." Here is a curious materialistic supplement to Words- worth's spiritual idea :- " The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar: Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home."
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