THE AUGUST METEORS. 221 



the tenth century the difference due to style amounted 

 only to six days ; so that the worthy monk's day for 

 ' meteorodes ' corresponded to August 16 of our time. 

 The same meteor system may be meant, however, as 

 perturbations may have affected the place where this 

 ^fmily of meteoric bodies crosses the earth's orbit. 



It is interesting to compare what was said about 

 shooting stars by Humboldt, forty years ago, with our 

 present knowledge. Then there were sensible men 

 who saw, in the knowledge already gathered, the 

 means of determining many points which writers in 

 our time too often speak of as if they were recent 

 discoveries. Then, also, there were representatives of 

 the sterile school of science who ridiculed the results of 

 sound reasoning, as if it were a fanciful hypothesis ; 

 men who called themselves observers, and spoke with 

 enthusiasm of the making of observations, the col- 

 lecting of observations, the classifying of observations, 

 of everything, in fine, connected with observations, 

 except the attempt to understand them and determine 

 their value, which these cleverly practical persons 

 called mere theorising. 



Thus Olmsted at Newhaven, Conn., found that 

 during the celebrated fall of shooting stars on the night 

 between November 12 and 13, 1833, the fire balls and 

 shooting stars all radiated from one and the same quarter 

 of the heavens, namely, the vicinity of the star Gamma 

 Leonis, and did not deviate from that point, though the 

 star changed its apparent height and direction with re- 

 gard to the compass points during the time of observa- 



