EXPECTED METEOR SHOWER. 



(From the Times of November 25, 1878.) 



IT is probable that during the next three nights some light 

 may be thrown on one of the most perplexing yet most in- 

 teresting of all the problems recently suggested to the study 

 of astronomers. It is confidently expected that many of 

 those November meteors called Andromeds will be seen on 

 one or other of those nights, if not on all three. No meteor 

 systems, not even the famous systems of August and Novem- 

 ber, are more remarkable than this singular family. To explain 

 why astronomers regard the Andromtds with so much in- 

 terest, it will be necessary to speak of an object which at first 

 sight seems in no way connected with them an object, in 

 fact, which, so long as it was actually known to astronomers, 

 was never supposed to be connected with any family of 

 meteors the celebrated lost comet called Biela's (or, by 

 Frenchmen, Gambart's comet). In February, 1826, Biela 

 discovered in the constellation Aries a comet which was 

 found to be travelling in an oval path round the sun, in a 

 period of about six years seven and a half months. Tracing 

 its course backwards, astronomers found that it had been 

 seen in 1772 by Montaigne, and observed for two or three 

 weeks in that year by Messier, the great, comet hunter. 

 Nothing very remarkable was recognised regarding this 

 comet in 1826, except the fact that its path nearly intersects 

 that of our own earth ; so that if ever the earth is to encounter 

 a comet, here seemed to be the comet she had to fear. 

 Great terror was, indeed, excited by the announcement that 

 in 1832 the comet would cross the earth's track only four cr 



