THE CHANCES OF BEING KILLED BY A METEOR

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXI, Issue 5646, 25 March 1880, Page 3

THE CHANCES OF BEING KILLED BY A METEOR

News comes from Missouri that a man has been kilted there by the downfall of a meteoric mass. It is described as about as large as a bucket, and resembling iron pyrites'.- It cut its way through the branches of a iflaple tree as clean as a feKmoii ball could hate <3ori6, struck and killed the man; and then bnried itself 2ft. in the ground. At first, iriariy gupp'osed the; "account to be a cleverly-invented sttffy- of the great gooseberry type, but it has been.connrnted, according, to Mr E. A.'Trootor, in the Nditic'as'tle Weekly Chronicled The chance of a death occurring in any given year by meteoric downfall is small, but not so exceedingly small Sal' many imagine. It could readily be Calculated if -we knew the average number'of irieteorites, ldrge enough to break iheir way through the protecting armor of the air, which fall each year upon the earth. Wo may fairly^ assume that each human being (including all ages) 1 jpresents an average surface towards the meteoric missiles of about one-quarter of a Square yard; (We must, of course, take into account the circrimstanc® that meteors do not fall vertically : nor are all men all the time afoot ) Assuming the number of human beings in the world at each instant to be about 3000 millions, the space thus OCfiUpied by the human race as a whole •tfould be one-quarter of 3000 millions of gduare yards. (It will presently be seen ■frhy :1 leave -£he result in this form.) Sow the earth's surface contains 200 Bullions of square miles, each continuing (ridarly enough for such a calculation as thiß) 3 millions of square yards. Hence the surface of the earth contains 200,000 times 3000 millions of square yards, whereas the human race covers but onequarter of 3000 millions of square yards. Sp-.-that the human race occupies but i-800th part of the earth's surface Therefore, if 2000 meteorites annually reach, the surface of the earth, the chances are but as 1 in 400 that one of those will . kili a human being. On the average one W^uman r being would be killed in 400 years. ™ it.is Iworthy of notice, however, that if Professor Newton, o£ Yale College, is tighten asserting that 400 millions of meteora of all orders, down to those visible oily in a telescope, fall each year, the chances of death from meteoric downfall •would be very great were it not for the very efficient protection afforded by our airi Fof'iri that case, as 400,000,000 excseds BOQjoop.five hundred times, we might expect that on the average 500 persons would be . filled each. year. For the smallest meteor, travelling with planetary velocity, or many times faster than a common jball, .would unquestionably be able to deal a fatal stroke. Fortunately there is no risk from these smaller meteors/ for they' are all vaporised in their tubli through the air.