3<> IN STARRY REALMS. 



nessed which we now know to have been showers of shoot- 

 ing stars. 



The earliest of the records is nearly a thousand years 

 old, and from that period down to the present the earth 

 has probably been the scene of about thirty or more 

 superb showers belonging to the system we are now con- 

 sidering. Whether all these displays were actually wit- 

 nessed we do not know. Thick and cloudy weather would 

 be sufficient to have obscured even the most splendid of 

 these showers. Bright moonlight would have greatly 

 impaired the effectiveness of others. Even those which 

 were seen may not have been all recorded. Even all that 

 have been recorded may not yet have disclosed themselves 

 to the diligent search of Professor H. Newton and the 

 other astronomers who have laboured at this interesting 

 subject. The records which have been found are not 

 always easy to interpret. In the days when astrologers 

 taught, and when the people believed, that the configura- 

 tions of the stars were designed to shadow forth the vicis- 

 situdes of human affairs, it was not likely that any very 

 lucid interpretation would be given to such an event as a 

 shower of shooting stars. Such phenomena have been 

 regarded as miraculous, and they were often thought to 

 be portents conveying and threatening divine wrath. 

 They were occasionally interpreted as gracious manifesta- 

 tions of divine approval. 



Some important facts with regard to ancient shooting- 

 star showers have, however, survived the thousand and 

 one casualties to which historical records are exposed. A 

 careful discussion of those which are sufficiently accurate 

 to be intelligible discloses to us the remarkable law 



