114 ROUGH WAYS MADE SMOOTH. 



earth has passed hundreds of times through the November 

 meteor system, yet its meteoric wealth has scarcely been 

 reduced at all, so exceedingly minute is the track of the 

 earth through the meteor system compared with the extension 

 of the system itself. The region through which the earth 

 has passed is less than a billionth part of the entire region 

 occupied by the system. But the November system is but 

 one among several hundreds through which the earth passes 

 in other words, the systems which chance to be traversed by 

 that mere thread-like ring in space traversed each year by the 

 earth, are not a millionth, not a billionth, of the total 

 number of such systems. It will be conceived, therefore, 

 that the total amount of meteoric matter, travelling on 

 orbits of all degrees of eccentricity and extension from the 

 sun and inclined at all angles to the general plane of the 

 solar system, must be enormously great. The idea once 

 advanced by an eminent astronomer that the total quantity 

 of unattached matter, so to speak, existing within the solar 

 domain must be estimated rather by pounds than by tons 

 is now altogether exploded. It would be truer to say that 

 the totality of matter thus freely travelling around the sun 

 must be estimated by billions of tons rather than by 

 millions. 



Whether it is likely that there will be a display of meteors 

 to-night (or, rather, to-morrow morning), is a question to 

 which most astronomers would be disposed, we believe, to 

 reply definitely in the negative. The display of November 

 13-14, 1866, was very brilliant ; that of 1867 ( Dest seen in 

 the United States) was almost equally so ; but successive 

 showers steadily diminished. In other words, the part of the 

 system crossed by the earth in 1866 and 1867 was very rich, 

 but the part which she crossed afterwards (the rich part 

 having passed far on towards the remote aphelion of the 

 system outside the orbit of Uranus) was less rich. For the 

 last few years very few November meteors have been seen, 

 though the few stragglers which have been seen, and have 

 been identified as belonging to the family by their paths 



