396 REPORT—1868. 
bable by researches with the spectroscope, acquires a new argument of cre- 
dibility.” 
In the fourth letter M. Schiaparelli traces a connexion between the ele- 
ments of the orbits of the “ Perseids,” or of the long elliptic current of me- 
teoric bodies which produce the August meteors, and those of the orbit cal- 
culated by Oppolzer for the Comet III. 1862. The following comparion shows 
that the two orbits are nearly identical. 
The Perseids, 1866. Comet ITI. 1862. 
Perihelion passage ...... July 23:62 1862 Aug. 22:9 
Passage through the @.. Aug. 10°75 
Longitude of perihelion . . 343° 38' 344° 41’ 
Maomerimdex0l Qs. «eve 138° 16 137° 27' 
inclination 2% Si4..Gh, 2A 64° 3' 66° 25' 
Perihelion distance...... 0:9643 0:9626 
Motion’. 2 s4[2.4%). 98 42.. retrograde. retrograde. 
Period of revolution 108 113 (Stimpfer.) 
In the same letter M. Schiaparelli gives the elements of the elliptic orbit 
of the November meteors, assuming their period to be 33°3 years. 
The average real velocity of meteors found by M. Schiaparelli in his first 
letter is nearly confirmed, from his own observations, by Prof. Wolf, of Ziirich, 
who, using the same formula of calculation, finds for its value 1:51, M. Schia- 
parelli’s result from nine similar series of observations to those of Prof. Wolf 
being 1-477. (Les Mondes, 2nd. ser. vol. xiii. p. 24.) 
The publication of M. Schiaparelli’s last letter was anticipated by Father 
Secchi in his description of the November shower of meteors in 1866 (see 
Les Mondes, 2nd ser, vol. xii. p. 647, 20th Dec. 1866), the fourth letter 
only appearing in the monthly Number of the Bullettino Meteorologico for the 
3lst of December, 1866, and the former letters in the Numbers for the pre- 
vious months. 
At a meeting of the Société Scientifique de France on the 14th of January, 
1867, and in a subsequent paper in the ‘Comptes Rendus’ (January 21st), 
M. Le Verrier announced the introduction of the November meteoric group 
into its present orbit to have been probably effected by the planet Uranus ; 
within a short distance of whose orbit the aphelion of the long elliptic orbit 
of the meteors, with a period of 33-25 years, must be situated; and the meteors 
themselves must nearly have encountered the planet in the year a.p. 126. 
Before that time their orbit may have been either within or beyond the re- 
gions of the planetary orbits. M. Le Verrier adds that “there is nothing 
to oblige us to suppose that the group did not originally belong to the solar 
system.” In later letters * M. Schiaparelli suggests that either of the two 
planets Saturn or Jupiter, rather than Uranus (on account of the comparatively 
small sphere of attraction of the latter planet being more calculated to dis- 
perse than to deflect a group of meteoroids from a very long elliptic into an 
elliptic orbit of the short period of 33-25 years), may have been instrumental in 
bringing the November meteors into their present close proximity to the earth. 
It should, however, be observed that the meteoric group does not pass so near 
the orbits, nor remain so long in the neighbourhood of either of those planets, 
as it approaches to the planet Uranus, partly in consequence of the inclina- 
tion of the orbit to the plane of the ecliptic, and partly because of the more 
rapid motion of the meteors near the sun than at the point of their more dis- 
tant appulse with the latter planet f. 
* Les Mondes, 2nd ser. vol. xiii. p. 251. 
t Sir J. Herschel’s ‘ Outlines of Astronomy,’ 9th Edition (1868), Note to Art. 902. 
