300 METEOES AND AEROLITES. 



orbit at this particular time a fact, the value of which in 

 relation to their theory will readily be understood. 



But the eager attention now given to the subject speedily 

 evoked other results. It was found, as well from prior record 

 as from present observation, that November was not the 

 sole period of recurrence of such phenomena. Tradition, 

 both in England and elsewhere, pointed out the 10th of 

 August, St. Lawrence's day, as frequently marked by these 

 fiery showers. In some parts of Germany the belief ran that 

 St. Lawrence wept tears of fire on the night of his fete. An 

 old monkish calendar, found at Cambridge, reciting the 

 natural events which belong to different days of the year, 

 designates this day as one of meteors (meteorodes). We find 

 a curious notice by Sir W. Hamilton of such a shower, as he 

 witnessed it at Naples on August 10, 1799. In 1839 these 

 August asteroids were very remarkable ; and it has been dis- 

 tinctly ascertained that they proceeded from a point in the 

 heavens between 'Perseus and Taurus, in direction towards 

 which point the earth traverses a tangent to her orbit at the 

 time a very striking concurrence with the facts just stated 

 respecting the November phenomenon. Further research 

 has indicated other times of the year April, July, and 

 December as marked by like periodical appearances ; but 

 the evidence is less distinct, and does not go further than to 

 justify the demand for future and multiplied observations. 



The admission of these wonderful facts created instant en- 

 quiry into their cause. No theory was seemingly tenable 

 which did not recognise in some form a revolution round the 

 Sun of the matter composing or evolving these asteroids. 

 Professor Olmsted and other American naturalists, fresh from 

 the spectacle that had been before their eyes, first took up 

 the question. The observers, collecting all the facts, deduced 

 from them the existence of a nebulous cloud or mass of 

 meteoric stars, approaching the earth at particular periods of 



