574 COSMOS. 



In each of the two periods there were simultaneously several 

 points of departure by no means always proceeding from the 

 same constellation, as there was too great a tendency to assume 

 since the year 1833." Besides the principal point of de- 

 parture of Algol in Perseus, Heis finds in the August periods- 

 of the years *1839, 1841, 1842, 1843, 1844, 1847, and 1848, 

 two others in Draco and the North Pole. 1 * " In order to 

 deduce accurate results as to the points of departure of the 

 paths of the falling stars in the November periods for the years 

 1839, 1841, 1846, and 1847, for the four points (Perseus, 

 Leo, Cassiopeia, and the Dragon's Head), the mean path 

 belonging to each was drawn upon a thirty-inch celestial 

 globe, and in every case the position of the point ascertained 

 from which the greatest number of paths proceeded. The 

 investigation showed that of 407 of the falling stars indicated 

 according to their paths, 171 came from Perseus, near the 

 star 77 in Medusa's Head, 83 from Leo, 35 from Cassiopeia, 

 near the changeable star a, 40 from the Dragon's Head, but 

 full 78 from undetermined points. The number of falling 

 stars issuing from Perseus consequently amounted to nearly 

 double those from Leo." 14 



13 The statement of the North Pole being a centre of radia- 

 tion in the August period is founded only upon the observations 

 of the one year 1839 (10th of August). A traveller in the 

 East, Dr. Asahel Grant, reports from Mardin in Mesopotamia, 

 " that about midnight the sky was as it were furrowed with 

 falling stars, all of which proceeded from the region of tlie 

 polar star." (Heis, p. 28, from a letter of Herrick's in 

 Quetelet's and Grant's Diary.) 



14 This preponderance of Perseus over Leo, as a point of 

 departure, did not by any means obtain in the observations 

 at Bremen on the night of the \\ November, 1838. A very 

 experienced observer, Roswinkel, saw, on the occasion of a 

 very abundant fall of shooting stars, almost all the paths pro- 

 ceed from Leo and the southern part of Ursa Major; while in 



