92 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



teresting calculation based on the Bielicls observed at Beyrout, Marseilles, 

 and Montcaliori, in 1885. The number seen was some 75,000 an hour, 

 and during that display the earth travelled 100,000 miles. This then 

 was a very rich part of that meteor-stream. Even there, the calculation 

 goes on to prove, and it is easy to repeat and check it, the meteors were 

 on an average 20 miles apart. 



Shooting stars are, however, like others — many more can be seen 

 with a telescope than without one — and it would in the present state of 

 our knowledge be rash to fix a limit to their number, and though their 

 bulk is very small, it is enough to form an important part of the material 

 lying on the deep sea bottom, far from shore, and has been estiinated to 

 add 100 tons a day to the weight of the earth. The material found is a 

 mere dust of iron oxide. 



They do not differ from one another in size alone. Some move much 

 more rapidly than others, some have longer or broader trails, some trails 

 appear to last longer, and they differ in colour too. In short, with a little 

 experience, one may tell an Andromède from a Perseid, Leonid or Lyrid. 

 without reference to its radiant. 



It may be here mentioned that the writer, availing himself of a 

 Barton electric furnace, placed at his disposal, applied the intense heat of 

 the electric arc to the surface of several kinds of minerals — chiefly quartz 

 and spar containing particles of various metallic ores. They became incan- 

 descent in a flash ; numerous fragments splintered off at a white heat, 

 showing how trails are formed and how their colours vary, also how the 

 " crust " on meteorites is formed. The wonder is how any meteors can 

 reach the earth except as cosmic dust. 



The present writer, observing shooting stars in 1893, was surprised 

 to find Perseids in July, continuing well into September. In 1894 they 

 were fairly abundant during the last week in July, while on their special 

 day they were very sparse. A similar observation was being made at 

 Pultava, and it stands to reason that the ring, if formed from the 

 materials of comets, must be enormously diffuse. The tails of these 

 bodies are seen to flicker — to emit streams in several directions. There 

 must be successive emissions, perhaps several at each perihelion passage, 

 and the planets affect them and cause a direct motion of their perihelia 

 and of the perihelia of their swarm rings. If we were to reduce the orbits 

 of the various Perseids we encounter to one set of co-ordinates and place 

 the eye at the nodal region, we should see their paths, diverging like 

 brushes of rays, to cover an enormous extent in space. Prof. Newton 

 .says the disintegrating force must be in the plane of the earth's orbit, 

 but it seems to the writer that if it emanates from the sun, the earth does 

 not at all control it — the materials would be thrown from the comet in 

 the shape of a cone, whose apex is at the comet and whose base is 

 enormously expanded. How full space now begins to seem ; not an 



