THE AUGUST METEORS. 179 



however, not the business of the ordinary gazer to regard such occur- 

 rences with more than a passing interest, and he simply watches their 

 progress with a feeling almost amounting to utter indifference. But 

 it serves to while away a leisure hour and to give rise to some curious 

 speculations as to the origin and end of the transient objects which 

 now and again come before his view. The case is different with the 

 scientific observer. He has a practical interest in the phenomenon, 

 and zealously endeavors to record its more remarkable features as they 

 become successively presented, and to watch with increasing diligence 

 its further development in the later hours of the night, remembering 

 that his notes must hereafter have some value in the genei-al compari- 

 son of results. 



Quetelet's catalogue of observed meteor-showers embraces a large 

 number which obviously belong to the August period, but the majority 

 occurred during the present century. This can not be ascribed to an 

 increasing activity of the meteor-stream. It is at once explained by a 

 greater assiduity of observation, and by the fact that the subject is 



Pig. 1. Broken Stkkak op a Perseid in Peqasus, August 11th, llh. 10m. 



considered of more importance than formerly. Hence in more recent 

 years the shower has been diligently looked for by many observers ; 

 and the result is that we find a large number of records of its displays. 

 In former years it was comparatively neglected. The uncertainty at- 

 tached to the whole subject rendered it unatti'active, for there seemed 

 little likelihood that it would ever become an important branch of 

 astronomy, or yield any valuable results to the patient observer of its 

 nightly displays. Thus we find, among historical records, only a few 

 scattered references to this shower, and we are led, at first, to the in- 

 ference that it was only rarely visible in consequence of the meteors 

 being slightly dispersed over the orbit in former years. But the irregu- 

 larities in the dates of its former apparitions may safely be ascribed 

 to other causes than a physical peculiarity of the shower itself. The 

 lack of interest in the subject would cause it frequently to be disre- 

 garded. Many of its exhibitions would pass wholly unobserved. In- 

 deed, it would only be described when it recurred with such striking 

 intensity as to force itself upon the attention as a celestial event of 

 considerable interest. Between 811 and 841 it furnished a succession 



