PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS, B.A. 1871. 191 



marvellous. The meteoric hypothesis to which I 

 have referred remained a mere hypothesis (I do 

 not know that it was ever even published), until, 

 in 1866, Schiaparelli calculated, from observations 

 on the August meteors, an orbit for these bodies 

 which he found to agree almost perfectly with the 

 orbit of the great comet of 1862 as calculated by 

 Oppolzer ; and so discovered and demonstrated 

 that a comet consists of a group of meteoric stones. 

 Professor Newton, of Yale College, United States, 

 by examining ancient records, ascertained that in 

 periods of about thirty-three years, since the year 

 902, there have been exceptionally brilliant displays 

 of the November meteors. It had long been 

 believed that these interesting visitants came from 

 a train of small detached planets circulating round 

 the Sun all in nearly the same orbit, and consti- 

 tuting a belt analogous to Saturn's ring, and that 

 the reason for the comparatively large number of 

 meteors which we observe annually about the I4th 

 of November is, that at that time the earth's orbit 

 cuts through the supposed meteoric belt. Professor 

 Newton concluded from his investigation that there 

 is a denser part of the group of meteors which 



