THE SIDEREAL UNIVERSE. 759 



The phenomenon of shooting-stars strikes the untutored 

 mind less than the appearance of comets, and yet notwith- 

 standing its frequency the explanation of it is not free 

 from obscurity on some points. 



The distance of the stars does not allow us to ascribe 

 to them the long trains of light which we see so frequently 

 traverse the heavens; hence this phenomenon is at present 

 attributed to bodies entering our atmosphere. 



Twice in the year the sky is constantly traversed by a 

 prodigious quantity of these luminous trains; in a single 

 hour we may at such times occasionally count 200 or 300. 

 One of these periods occurs from the 10th to the 12th of 

 August, and it is to this phenomenon, which has long as- 

 tonished the vulgar, that the name of St. Laurence's rain 

 has been given, on account of his festival falling on the 10th 

 of August. These luminous trains are looked upon by 

 Irish Catholics as the burning tears of the venerated saint. 



During the night of the 12th and of the 13th of Nov- 

 ember, the same abundance of shooting- stars has been 

 observed. Humboldt and Bonpland, who were witnesses 

 of it in Cumana, relate that the number of luminous 

 trains traversing the sky was so great that the spectator 

 might have thought it was some magnificent display of 

 fireworks at a prodigious height. At sea the phenomenon 

 is no less extraordinary, it looks like so many rockets 

 which fall towards the horizon. 



An attempt has been made to explain this abundance 

 of shooting-stars at the two periods we mention, l;)y sup- 

 posing that the sun is encircled by a ring composed of 

 myriads of little bodies, which ring the earth passes through 

 annually at these times. 



The number of these meteoric bodies which penetrate 

 into our atmosphere in this way, and appear under a lumi- 



