r22 
relate in a satisfactory manner. And, as we have already 
said, it is certainly not worthy of the luxurious paper and 
excellent print lavished upon it in the translation. In 
short, Ze jeu ne vaut par la chandelle. Messrs. Labou- 
chere and Jesse might have spent their time and money in 
many other ways, to the greater advantage of natural his- 
tory and of their own pockets. 
Notes on River Basins, By Robert A, Williams, (London : 
Longmans and Co., 1872.) 
THE river basins to which this little book refers are those 
of Great Britain and Ireland, and the notes are published, 
the author says, in the hope that they may be found useful 
to pupil-teachers. They are intended to form a supple- 
ment to the usual text-books of school geography. The 
rivers of England are given first, then those of Scotland 
and Ireland, each system being preceded by a general 
sketch of the course of the water-shed (or ‘“ water- 
parting,” as Mr. Williams prefers to call it) of the 
country to which it belongs, and followed by a section on 
the canals. The author commences at one end of each 
country, takes the rivers in their order round the coast, 
names the drainage basin and source, describes the course 
and mouth, takes up and describes each tributary and 
affluent as it occurs, names and gives the measurements 
of any lakes which may be in the way, mentions the most 
remarkable features, and ends by giving the length of the 
main river and the area of its basin. So far as we have 
tested it the information seems in the main accurate,.and 
the list of rivers and tributaries is remarkably full. Mr. 
Williams mentions the fall of the Rumbling Bridge on the 
Devon, a tributary of the Forth, but takes no notice of 
the equally high and equally grand fall of the same name 
on the Bran, a tributary of the Tay. It is surely very un- 
usual to spell Dunkeld “Dunkield.”. The book will be 
useful to all who wish to have the main details con- 
cerning British rivers and canals carefully and clearly 
arranged in a handy form. 
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 
[ The Editor does not hold himself responsible for opinions expressed 
by his correspondents, No notice is taken of anonymous 
communications. | 
The late Meteoric Shower 
WE have had here, and I presume you also have had in Eng- 
land, quite a fine display of shooting stars from the fragments or 
companions of Biela’s co met. 
On Sunday evening, Nov. 24, they were coming about as fast 
as in the thickest parts of the August sprinkles—that is, forty or 
fifty to the hour, fora single observer. Three-fourths of them 
radiated from yy Andro medz and vicinity. 
On Monday morning there was no special abundance, but the 
radiant was then quite low in the north-west. 
Monday evening they were coming with about half the fre- 
quency of the previous evening. Half of those seen came from 
the Andromeda radiant. 
Tuesday evening the sky was overcast, but Wednesday even- 
ing there was so great a display as to attract the attention of 
multitudes. Our party of from two to six persons counted 1,000 
in a part of the first hour—that is, from 6h. 38m. to 7h. 34m., 
and in the next hour and a quarter we counted 750. The dis- 
play was rapidly diminishing. Before midnight it was essen- 
tially over, and, so far as I know, has not re-appeared. 
The flights were slower than those of the Nov. 14 period, and 
generally faint. The radiant was carefully observed on Wed- 
nesday evening by Prof. Twining and myself, and we argued 
that the centre was in the line from the Pleiades to - Andro- 
medz produced, and was about 3° beyond that star. It 
was much longer in right ascension than in declination, and was 
not less than 8° long, The star y was within the radiant 
area, for flights in the several directions from the radiant would, 
if produced backward, pass sometimes on one side and some- 
times the other of that star. 
The character of this display, and the previously observed divi- 
count, especially of those meteors appearing near the zenith; — 
sion of the comet into two parts, will, I doubt not, incline astro- _ 
nomers to the opinion of Dr. Weiss and others, who think that the 
shooting stars are products of the disintegration of comets 
already moving in closed orbits, rather than to the opinion 
of Prof. Schiaparelli that they are drawn from the stellar spaces 
into long parabolic currents. The latter hypothesis presents 
difficulties which I cannot explain. , 
Yale College, Dec. 2 
H. A. NEWTON 
Ir the following translation of a letter I have received from 
Father Denza, Director of the Royal Observatory at Montcalieri, 
in Piedmont, will be of interest, it is at your service. v 
R. P. GREG 
“Dear Sir,—A great shower of luminous meteors has just 
been witnessed throughout this country, and has no doubt been 
seen elsewhere. As soon as it became dusk falling stars were 
observed to fall continuously until midnight, and had it not then 
become cloudy no doubt they would have been seen until a still 
later hour. About 33,400 meteors were here counted by four 
observers. Even this number does not adequately represent the 
probable actual numbers. About 8 P.M. (when in some parts of — 
the sky there seemed a real rain of fire) it was difficult to keep 
and at one time our four observers counted on the average 400 
meteors every minute and a half, All the wonderful and beauti- 
ful appearances reminded us of the November shower. The 
meteors appeared of various colours ; some left brilliant streaks; 
fireballs were frequent, some with an apparent diameter nearly 
equal to the moon’s ; some here and there breaking up in a 
thousand ways, as into a luminous cloud, or opening out into 
bundles of rays of singular shapes. From time to time — 
some of these nebulous trains or appearances pursued their — 
courses ; or now vanishing or halting, only again to reappear. 
One of these, which appeared at 6h. 35m. between Perseus and 
Auriga, remained visible until 6.56, or 21m. after its first becom- 
ing visible. In short the general aspect of the phenomenon was — 
that of a cosmic cloud which, encountering our atmosphere, 
appears and then melts away. The position of the radiant, 
which was accurately determined, was almost close to y Andro- 
medz, and the epoch of the appearance induces one to suppose 
that the meteoric stream which we have just been traversing, 
and which in fact has been more or less seen every year, though 
with much less intensity might be the same which was seen 
by Brande, December 7, 1798, and again noticed on the same 
day in 1830 by the Abbé Raillard ; in 1838 by Herrick and ~ 
Flangergnes ; lateragain in 1847 by Prof. Heis, of Miinster; 
and in 1867 was recognised by Signor Zerioli at Bergamo. 
At the present time its point of contact with the earth’s orbit — 
must have taken place on November 27-28. Nowit results from 
sufficiently probable calculations, that this meteor stream marks 
the orbit of the so much celebrated comet of Biela, the appear- 
ance or passage of which we have been expecting in the month oi 
October of the present year, and for which astronomers areon 
the look-out. Most probably the large meteoric stream or cloud 
which produced this remarkable shower of falling stars last — 
evening belongs to a part of this comet ; so much the more likel 
when we consider that only yesterday the earth passed coe 
one of the two nodes of this comet’s orbit. 
** A fine rose aurora was visible last evening from 6 to 8 P.M., 
adding to the beauty of the entire phenomenon. ; 
“* Yours respectfully, 
“ DE 
‘= 
i NZA 
‘*Montcalieri Observatory, Nov. 28, 1872 
“ P.S.—The shower was seen by many other Italian observers 
and astronomers—by Gasparis at Naples, who noted two meteors 
per second; Prof. Eugenio at Matera with three assistants 
counted 38,153 meteors between 6 and 12 o’clock ; at Messina 
the number was too great to count ; at Mandori Prof. Bruno and 
three assistants counted 30,881 meteors between 6h. 18m. and 
14h. 15m. ; at Ancona were counted 5,000 meteors per hour. | 
The maximum appearance generally at all these stations sas 
about 8 p.M., and the radiant was found to be not far from y 
Andromede.” 
ag 
<4 
WHILE going to the Naval Observatory on the evening of 
November 27, I noticed many shooting-stars, and made the fol- — 
lowing observations :—From 6h, 25m. to 6h. 43m., Washi , 
5 ashington 
mean time, I counted one hundred meteors ; and from 7h, 40m, — 
