196 The November Shooting Stars. 



least, of their passage across the darkened part of the disk. 

 At Calcutta, for instance, the boundary of visibility is appre- 

 ciably circular (as shown in Fig. 1) a short time before sunrise. 

 At this hour, last November, the shower had not reached its 

 full splendour, and therefore, .the richer part of the display 

 was not seen in Calcutta. In Nubia, Egypt, Asia Minor, and 

 Greece, the shower was more favourably seen. Mr. Schmidt, 

 for instance, reported a very rich display at Athens, reaching 

 its maximum at 2h. 15m. local time, or about 12h. 45m. 

 Greenwich time ; very nearly the hour illustrated in Fig. 1 . 

 The display in India (at Kishnagur, fifty miles from Calcutta) 

 began before four o' clock, and continued till daylight. At 

 4h. a.m., Calcutta mean time, which corresponds to 10 p.m., 

 Greenwich time, London had not yet reached a position for a 

 favourable view of the display. 



It will be seen from Figs. 1 and 2, that during nearly the 

 whole time that the display continued, last year, in England, 

 every visible shooting star was travelling towards the earth/ s 

 surface, not grazing the atmosphere. Thus no shooting star 

 which fell within the oval line marked round England in Fig. 

 1, or in Fig. 2, could have failed to reach the earth's surface, 

 unless dissipated in the upper regions of air. And, indeed, 

 independently of the consideration of the November shower, 

 and its radiant, it is quite clear that of meteors which pass into 

 an atmosphere, by far the larger number travel in a line which 

 produced meets the earth's solid surface. For, in whatever 

 direction a meteor stream is travelling, the earth, seen from 

 tbe radiant point of the stream, must present an appeai'ance 

 corresponding to that illustrated in Figs. 1 and 2. The pole 

 may be more or less bowed towards, or from, the direction in 

 Avhich the meteors are travelling (relatively) towards the earth, 

 and other countries bhan those presented in the figures, may 

 be turned towards the meteor-flight ; but a circular disk, 

 apparently fringed with a comparatively narrow border of 

 atmosphere, must in every case be presented towards the 

 meteor-stream. Only those meteors which impinge on this 

 fringe, a circular ring 70 miles wide,* can possibly free them- 

 selves by passing through (or grazing) the atmospheric en- 

 velope. All those meteors which are making for the apparent 

 disk of the solid earth, a circle, nearly 4,000 miles in radius, 

 must inevitably reach the earth, either in a solid form or in 

 the form of meteoric dust, after being dissipated in their 

 passage through the upper atmospheric layers. Assuming 

 that every meteor making for the fringe escapes, which is, 



* Of course, not in reality such a ring, but apparently bo viewed from the 

 radiant point of the meteor-flight ; and intercepting the same proportion of me- 

 teors as if actually so. 



