T5S SCIENCE IN SHORT CHAPTERS. 



I can only state the general results, which are that the 

 meteors which we see every year, more or less abundantly, on 

 the nights of the 10th and llth of August, and which always 

 appear to come from the same point in the heavens, are then 

 and thus visible because they form part of an eccentric ellipti- 

 cal zone of meteoric bodies which girdle the domain of the 

 sun ; and that our earth, in the course of its annual journey 

 round the sun, crosses and plunges more or less deeply into 

 this ellipse of small attendant bodies, which are supposed to be 

 moving in regular orbits around the sun. 



Schiaparelli has compared the position, the direction, and 

 the velocity of motion of the August meteors with the orbit of 

 the great comet of 1862, and infers that there is a close con- 

 nection between them, so close that the meteors may be 

 regarded as a sort of trail which the comet has left behind. 

 He does not exactly say that they are detached vertebra) of 

 the comet's tail, but suggests the possibility of their original 

 connection with its head. 



Similar observations have been made upon the November 

 meteoric showers, which, by similar reasoning, are associated 

 with another comet ; and further yet, it is assumed upon anal- 

 ogy that other recognized meteor systems, amounting to 

 nearly two hundred in number, are in like manner associated 

 with other comets. 



If these theories are sound, our diagrams and mental pict- 

 ures of the solar system must be materially modified. Besides 

 the central sun, the eight planets, and the asteroids moving in 

 their nearly circular orbits, and some eccentric comets travel- 

 ling in long ellipses, we must add a countless multitude of 

 small bodies clustered in elliptical rings, all travelling together 

 in the path marked by their containing girdle, and following 

 the lead of a streaming vaporous monster, their parent comet. 



We must count such comets, and such rings filled with 

 attendant fragments, not merely by tens or hundreds, but by 

 thousands and tens of thousands, even by millions ; the path 

 of the earth being but a thread in space, and yet a hundred or 

 two are strung upon it. 



In this article Mr. Proctor seems strongly disposed to return 

 to the theory which attributes solar heat and light to a bom- 

 bardment of meteors from without, and the solar corona and 

 zodiacal light as visible presentments of these meteors. Still, 

 however, ho clings to the more recent explanation which 

 regards the corona, the zodiacal light, and the meteors as 



