234 W STARRY REALMS. 



I am enabled to give the accurate estimate made by Mr. 

 Baxendell at Manchester, where the shower was well seen. 

 Out of every hundred of these meteors ten were brighter 

 than a first magnitude star, and two or three of them were 

 brighter than Sirius. Fifteen out of each hundred were 

 between the first and second magnitudes, and twenty-five 

 were between the second and third magnitudes, while the 

 remainder were smaller. These results may be placed 

 in a somewhat more simple aspect in a different way. 

 Think of the brightness of the seven stars in that most 

 familiar of all the constellations, the Great Bear ; about 

 half of the meteors noticed during the continuance of 

 the shower were as bright as, or brighter than, the stars 

 of the Great Bear. The remaining half of the visible 

 meteors must be compared with stars of a fainter de- 

 scription. 



I have described how that great November shower of 

 stars began, but I have not asserted that the display came 

 upon us entirely by surprise. I certainly was surprised 

 at its magnificence, but we confidently anticipated that a 

 shooting star shower of some notable kind would occur on 

 that very night. How, it may well be asked, could we 

 know that such a spectacle might be expected ? The story 

 is a wonderful romance in modern science. 



We expect that the sun will rise to-morrow morning. 

 Now why do we so expect it ? Without entering into any 

 profound disquisition on the subject, we may say that the 

 practical grounds of this expectation depend upon the fact 

 that we have always found that the sun does rise, and 

 that as this operation has continued with unfailing regu- 

 larity for untold ages, we have reason to anticipate a 



