142 A CENTURY'S PROGRESS IN ASTRONOMY. 



different types of celestial bodies. Early in 1867 

 Sehiaparelli found that Le Verrier's elements for 

 the orbit of the Leonids were identical with 

 those of the comet of 1866, discovered by Ernst 

 Tempel (1821-1889). Peters of Altona had 

 meanwhile reached the same conclusion ; while 

 Edmund Weiss (born 1837) of Vienna pointed 

 out the similarity of the orbit of a star-shower 

 on April 20 and that of the comet of 1861. 

 He also drew attention, independently of Galle 

 and D' Arrest, to the close connection between 

 the orbits of the lost Biela's comet and the 

 Andromedid meteors of November. 



All doubt as to the connection of comets and 

 meteors was removed by the great shower on 

 November 27, 1872. Biela's lost comet was due 

 at perihelion in 1872, and although searched for 

 was not observed ; but when the Earth crossed 

 its orbit, a great meteoric shower took place. 

 "It became evident," says Miss Clerke, "that 

 Biela's comet was shedding over us the pulver- 

 ised products of its disintegration." The shower 

 was little inferior to that of 1866. Meanwhile 

 Ernst Klinkerfues (1827-1884), Professor at 

 Gottingen, believing that Biela's comet itself had 

 encountered the Earth, telegraphed to Norman 

 Robert Pogson (1829-1891), Government astron- 

 omer at Madras, to search for the comet in the 



