THE AUGUST METEORS. 22 3 



they passed through our atmosphere) to follow such 

 paths as the August meteors traverse, i.e., paths seeming 

 to radiate from the constellation Perseus. The beau- 

 tiful reasoning of Olmsted had been neglected ; the 

 bold fancy of Schiaparelli was at once noted : not more 

 noted afterwards, when by sound reasoning he showed 

 that his lucky guess was a true one, than when he first 

 threw out the idea. What followed is or should be 

 well known. Adams, by an admirable mathematical, 

 investigation, showed that the November meteors 

 travel in a period of 33 years round the sun ; and it 

 was found that Tempel's Comet of 1866 traverses the 

 self-same track. After which, it was justly regarded 

 as proved that these meteor systems, following in the 

 track of two comets, are in some way associated with 

 them, and that, therefore, probably other systems of 

 meteors are similarly associated with comets ; and 

 other comets, in like manner, followed by trains of 

 meteoric bodies. 1 



The shooting stars, which are usually seen during 

 a few nights in the second week of August, may 

 be identified with the Perseids by observing whether 

 the paths they follow traced straight backwards 

 pass through the constellation Perseus. The Star Map 



1 A fact singularly misunderstood by many. Thus, in Mr. Dunman's 

 charming Talks about Science, just issued, it is stated that, according to 

 ' Messrs. Thompson ' [Sir W. Thomson] ' and Tait,' the tail of a comet 

 is ' a cloud of dust from the colliding masses ' [of meteors] ' which the 

 head trails behind it.' Mr. Tait said something of the sort in fact, he 

 wrote that a comet's tail is merely a shower of paring-stones ; but that 

 was before he knew what astronomers had really proved. 



