106 SCIENCE IN SHOUT CHAPTERS. 



mathematical probability. Those who are specially inter- 

 ested in the modern progress of astronomy should read 

 tliis article in the Quarterly Journal of Science, which is 

 illustrated with the diagrams necessary for the comprehen- 

 sion of the researches and reasoning of Schiaparelli and 

 others who hare worked on the same ground. 



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 elliptical zone of meteoric bodies which girdle the 

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

 annual journey around the sun, crosses and plunges more 

 or less deeply into this ellipse of small attendant bodies, 

 which are supposed to be moving in regulur 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 connection 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 

 vertebrae of the comet's tail, but suggests the possibility of 

 their original connection with its head. 



Similar observations have been made upon the Novem- 

 ber meteoric showers, which by similar reasoning, are as- 

 sociated with another comet; and further yet, it is assumed 

 upon analogy that other recognized meteor systems, amount- 

 ing to nearly two hundred in number, are in like manner 

 associated with other comets. 



If these theories are sound, our diagrams and mental 

 pictures 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 traveling in long ellipses, we must add a countless 

 multitude of small bodies clustered in elliptical rings, all 

 traveling together in the path marked by their containing 

 girdle, and following the lead of a streaming vaporous mon- 

 ster, their parent comet. 



