froni. Mazajy'iL Mexico. 53 



would strike it, conibiniiig their own velocity with that of tlie 

 terrestrial olobe. Were the chain a loiio- one, tlie earth would 

 thus pass throuo-li it each year at the same point, encountering 

 in each passage different bodies from those met with before. It 

 is therefore easy to calculate the position of this current. Schi- 

 a})arelli has made the calculations for the currents of August 

 and Novembei', and by a fortunate circumstance found that two 

 well known comets have orbits which coincide in every particu- 

 lar with two chains of meteors. 



'J'his theory was fully confirmed by the falling of meteors on 

 !N"ov. 27th, 1872. I have already stated that on that day the 

 earth should pass, as in 1832, very close to Biela's comet, and. 

 that for some days all Europe was alarmed for the consequences 

 of such an encounter. 



The earth did, indeed, cross the orbit of Biela's comet, on 

 Nov. 27th, 1872, and on the same date in 1885 ; but it then met 

 with a disintegrated body, broken into millions of fragment,^. 

 \Ve have already spoken of the fact that, in 1846, astronomers 

 were witnesses of the initial breaking, and that up to 1852 those 

 twin comets still travelled side by side, and that from that time 

 they have not been seen except in countless fragments. 



Let us compare the meteoric showers of 1872 and of 1885. 



On Nov. 27th, 1872. all Europe saw this magnificent spectacle. 

 It could not be seen in America, as at the time of greatest inten- 

 sity of the phenomenon the sun was above the horizon. 



Let us listen to what Abbe Secchi says in a letter to the then 

 perpetual Secretary of the Academy of Sciences of Paris (Lec- 

 tures on Astronomy, Vol. 5, Flammarion) : ''We have had a 

 brilliant appearance of meteors on the 27th of November. I 

 was not notified of the phenomenon until 7.30 P. M., when it had 

 been in full activity for an hour. We observed it thenceforward 

 with the closest attention. From that time until 1 A. M., we 

 counted 13,892 meteors, but a great number could not be counted. 

 The entire sky was ablaze ; it was literally a rain. The majority 

 of the stars were small ; nearly ten per cent, -were of the second 

 magnitude, nearly two per cent, of the first. There were 

 many spherical ones. The radial point was, at 8 P. M., in 

 that space comprehended by the constellations of Aries, the 

 Triangle and the Fly ; it passed at once to the base of the 



