TTAWA, Nov. 29. – E. Stone Wiggins, the professor of meteorological, astronomical and weather lore, has a solution of meteoric problems. He says they are the result of Mars’ inhabitants stoning us. If that be true the Martians are an ill-bred race, and it is not worth our while to know them. He said the other day:
“Our earth – and probably all planets – is surrounded by a ring of floating stones. This ring is much broken, there being parts of the ring where there are no stones. Some are very large, but the greater number small. The flat part of direction of this ring does not lie exactly in the ecliptic, or they would be instantly crossing the sun’s disk. The ring sways sometimes and they are seen on the sun’s orb, and are what astronomers call ‘sun spots.’ The orbits of our two moons, like this ring, are inclined to the ecliptic, and hence, like these stones, only now and then come between us and the sun, when we say the sun is eclipsed.
“What causes them to fail? Some heavenly body that, in passing, comes between them and our planet, destroying their equilibrium, like a comet. But the chief cause is this: Both our visible and invisible
moons begin to move into a larger orbit around the earth this month, for they are further away from us in Winter than in Summer. When these moons happen at that time to be together they sway the ring
and some of the stones fall to the earth, but as this rarely happens the November meteors very rarely occur. The fact is meteors fall at all seasons of the year, because these moons are in conjunction with one another at all seasons.
“I do not believe in the doctrine of ‘November meteors,’ nor do I believe they come from any point beyond the solar system. If they do, they require years to reach us, and then must revolve hundreds of times around the earth before they fall, It is all nonsense what astronomers say that they come from the constellations, for scores and hundreds of other worlds would attract them before they could reach our little planet. The stars themselves would prevent their falling away from their own sphere of attraction.
“These stones have fallen in all ages, and are mentioned by the most ancient historians who thought they were sent to the earth by the gods. Hence these stones found with lines written on them were venerated. The Bible tells us that a shower of these stones fell on the enemies of Joshua, and we translate the word as ‘hailstones,’ but It should be rendered ‘heavenly stones,’ or meteors. The goddess Cybele was worshipped first In Phrygia, and the sacred the stone or meteor, which was the secret of her divinity, was transported to Rome. Stone worship was general in pre-historic times, as proved by the stone at Bethel, in the stone In the temple of the great goddess of Cyrus at Pharos, the stone at Edessa and the seven black stones representing the planet gods in ancient Chaldea.
“The Indians of America appear to have by had stone gods. Plutarch mentions a shower of meteors 705 B. C. Livy says, the In his history of Rome, that a shower of stones fell at Rome 652 B. C., when the Senate decreed a nine-day festival. On November 29, 1637, a stone weighing fifty four pounds fell in France. It had the size and shape of a human head. In the British Museum Is a black stone in its natural state that has a portrait of the poet Chaucer.
“I am disposed to think that the people of Mars throw stones to the earth containing portraits of themselves, some containing written characters like that which fell at Binghamton. Pliny and other ancient writers speak of agates and other stones containing portraits of the gods. Why should not the Martians throw missiles to the earth to inform us of their existence and condition, when they form enormous lights and geometrical figures on the surface of their planet to attract our attention?”