METEORS. 159 



pages. It would also occupy more space than can here 

 be spared. I purpose to consider at present rather 

 the conclusions to which recent discoveries have led, 

 than the history of the inquiries of which those dis- 

 coveries were the reward. 



The first, and in some respects the most striking, 

 feature of the new meteoric astronomy is the amazing 

 extent of the paths on which meteors travel. There 

 was something very startling in the conclusion to which 

 astronomers had been already led, that meteors are 

 bodies which, before encountering our earth, have 

 travelled on paths comparable in extent with hers. 

 That a tiny body a body so light, in many instances, 

 that a child could play with it should for countless 

 ages have swept around the sun on a path many 

 millions of miles in diameter ; that, in fact, such a 

 body should have been in reality a planet, was certainly 

 a most surprising theory. But now we know that, so 

 far as orbital range is concerned, our earth sinks into 

 utter insignificance beside most, if not all, of these 

 meteoric bodies. Astronomers have only been able 

 to determine the real paths of two meteoric systems ; 

 but these two systems afford very significant evidence 

 respecting their fellow-systems. The members of one 

 the November system travel to a distance exceeding 

 that at which remote Uranus pursues his gloomy career; 

 the members of the other the August family of 

 meteors pass to a distance far exceeding even that of 

 Neptune. As it is wholly unlikely that the two meteor 

 systems first successfully dealt with are the most ex- 



