Wt> TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTELY. 



system in January, a. d. 126, and passed so near the planet Uranus as to 

 be brought by its attraction into an elliptic orbit round the sun. This 

 orbit is the same as that of the comet discovered by Tempel, and cal- 

 culated by Oppolzer, and is identical with that in which the Novem- 

 ber group of meteors make their revolution. 



Since that time, this cosmical cloud, in the form of a comet, has 

 completed fifty-two revolutions round the sun, without its existence be- 

 ing otherwise made known than by the loss of an immense number of 

 its components, in the form of shooting-stars, as it crossed the earth's 

 path in each revolution, or in the month of November in every 33 

 years. It was only in its last revolution, in the year 1866, that 

 this meteoric cloud, now forming part of our solar system, was first 

 Been as a comet. 



The orbit of this comet is much smaller than that of the August 

 meteors, extending at the aphelion as far as the orbit of Uranus, while 

 the perihelion is nearly as far from the sun as our earth. The comet 

 completes its revolution in about 33 years and three months, and 

 encounters the earth's orbit as it is approaching the sun toward 

 the end of September. It is followed by a large group of small mete- 

 oric bodies, which form a very broad and long tail, through which the 

 earth passes on the 1 3th of November. Those particles which come in 

 contact with the earth, or approach so near as to be attracted into its 

 atmosphere, become ignited, and appear as falling stars. As the earth 

 encounters the comet's tail, or meteoric shower, for three successive 

 years at the same place, we must conclude the comet's track to have 

 the enormous length of 1,772,000,000 of miles. In Fig. 4, C D repre- 

 sents a portion of the orbit of this comet which is identical with the 

 orbit (Fig. 3) of the November meteors. Spectrum Analysis. 



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MODERN LITERATURES IN THE HIGHER EDUCATION. 



By Db. J. B. MOZLEY, 



PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY, AND CANON OF CHRIST CHURCH, OXFORD 



THERE is no one who, coming for the first time to a knowledge of 

 our English system of education, would not be very much sur- 

 prised by the fact that, while we take the greatest trouble to instruct 

 young men in the language, history, and institutions of nations that 

 lived two thousand years ago, and whose whole being belongs to a past 

 stage in the world's existence, we take no trouble at all to instruct 

 them concerning the nations who now live, with whom we have an 

 every-day intercourse, on whom we depend for so many benefits, as well 

 material as spiritual, whose temper, character, and friendly or inimical 



