190 The November Shooti?ig Stars. 



THE NOVEMBER SHOOTING STARS. 



BY RICHAED A. PROCTOK, B.A., F.R.A.S. 

 (With a Plate.) 



It is probable that there will be this year an exhibition of the 

 November shooting stars, though it is uncertain whether the phe- 

 nomenon will be so well seen in Europe as it was last year. As 

 a display the shower is not likely to be so splendid as it was in 

 1866, since on November 14th of the present year, the moon 

 will be nearly full. However, there can be no doubt that the 

 November meteors will be looked for again with great interest, 

 since the discoveries which have been made respecting the orbit 

 in which they move, have presented them to us in a new aspect. 

 When the shower of November last was under discussion, 

 it was very noteworthy how indistinct were the views of many 

 persons — I may even say of many astronomers — respecting the 

 relations of the earth's globe, as it travelled onwards rotating in 

 its orbit, to the meteor stream which it encountered. I do 

 not here refer to the doubt and obscurity under which the 

 question of the path actually pursued by the meteors rested at 

 that time. The investigation of this question was one of ex- 

 treme difficulty, one which taxed — and not lightly — the powers 

 of the highest modes of mathematical analysis. But many 

 appeared to find considerable difficulty, or failed altogether 

 in forming an estimate of the circumstances under which the 

 meteors became visible to us. The existence of a " radiant 

 point" from which all the shooting stars appeared to travel, 

 in whatever part of the sky they made their appearance, was 

 a phenomenon which — although in reality it inferred the 

 solution of the problem of the meteors' origin — yet presented 

 difficulties to many observers. The questions that were asked 

 and the suggestions that were offered on this and kindred 

 points, were many and amusing. One observer, noticing the 

 comparative absence of meteors from the immediate neigh- 

 bourhood of the " radiant point," suggested in explanation of 

 the peculiarity, that the earth was passing through a sort of 

 tunnel traversing a bed of meteors ; thus in the path along 

 which the earth travelled, there were no meteors or few — pre- 

 vious passages along the same track having cleared the Way — 

 but many meteors grazed the earth's atmosphere, the bore of 

 the tunnel only allowing the solid globe of the earth to pass 

 freely. And, indeed, the supposition that shooting stars arc 

 only seen when grazing our atmosphere has been commonly 

 entertained and expressed even by astronomers of eminence. Sir 



