for the year 1872. Ixix 



a former address I had the honour of deliverirg to 

 you, I spoke of the "meteor shower" which fell in 

 Europe in November 1866, and that it had been 

 established beyond a doubt that these bodies travelled in 

 orbits intersecting that of the earth at different points ;, 

 that one coterie intersected it in November, another in 

 August, and so forth. Since then, however, it has been 

 found from observation that the number of these meteor 

 rings is very large, and that they intersect the earth's orbit 

 at numerous points. And it may be stated generally, that 

 all falling or shooting stars, at the time we see them, 

 are, or have been very recently, members of groups travelling 

 in true orbits, and not merely stray wanderers in space. 



Professor Schiaparelli has concluded from his researches 

 that " celestial matter may be divided into the following 

 classes : 1. Fixed stars. 2. Agglomeration of small stars 

 (resolvable nebula). 3. Similar bodies, invisible except 

 when approaching the sun (comets). 4. Small particles, 

 composing a cosmical cloud." He thinks the last occupy a 

 large pox"tion of space, and have motions similar to fixed 

 stars. The latter are the sources of falling stars:. Brought 

 by the motion of our system in space within the sphere of 

 our sun's attraction, they become in a measure part of his 

 family and subject to him. If, while making their sun 

 journey, they approach a planet — the earth for instance — 

 they get disturbed in their orbits, and, becoming subject to the 

 earth's mass, liable to enter the upper regions of our atmo- 

 sphere, under which condition they appear to us as " shooting 

 stars." "Thus meteors and other celestial phenomena of 

 like nature, which a century ago were regarded as 

 atmospheric phenomena — which La Place and Olbers 

 ventured to think came from the moon, and which after- 

 wards were raised to the dignity of being members of the 

 planetary system — arc now proved to belong to the stellar 



