The November Shooting Stars. 453 



more recent years, a display of them seen from Malta on Nov. 

 13th, 1864, when clouds obscured the sky in England, and in 

 1865, when a considerable number (250 per hour) were 

 observed from Greenwich. 



A ring of meteors in space, large almost as this earth's 

 great track round the sun — what a wonderful idea, when one 

 comes to consider it, or to represent it in a diagram ! One 

 ring ! there are probably several, belonging to the various 

 periodic groups of these strange bodies which up to the pre- 

 sent time have been detected. The August meteors are as 

 well-marked a group as those of November ; they, too, have a 

 sidereal apex always the same at each return, but it is far 

 away from Leo, being close to the small star B Camelopardali. 

 Certain other star-showers, also proved to be periodical, have 

 also their points of radiation ; and though in some cases these 

 are not actually to be described as points but rather as regions 

 of radiation (implying perhaps a want of parallelism in the 

 movements of the meteors), astronomers still hold that it is 

 highly probable that all shooting stars are grouped according 

 to some law, and may form a number of rings, some nearly 

 circular, some of a lengthened elliptical form, like those of 

 comets ; and that those which appear to be not periodical may 

 be out-liers of such rings.* 



Nor are the positions or dates of appearance the only dis- 

 tinctive features of the various groups of shooting stars, they 

 have their own individuality — "The meteors of particular 

 showers vary in their distinctive characters, some being larger 

 and brighter than others; some swifter, and drawing after 

 them more persistent trains than others. "f 



Two well-marked groups — probably rings — of meteors, — 

 several others more or less known — their nearest approach to 

 the earth estimated at an average of sixty miles, and their 

 ordinary velocity supposed to be somewhere about twenty 

 miles in a second, hastened as they approach the earth's at- 

 traction to nearly forty miles — so much being granted, have 

 we yet answered the question "what are they?" Are they 

 solid or gaseous, are they large or small, perpetually luminous 

 or only exceptionally so ? 



The late observations which have succeeded in subjecting 

 their fleeting light to the process of spectrum analysis will 

 probably clear up some of the difficulties respecting their 

 nature. £ But e^en before this clue was given for their in- 

 vestigation, the learned had arrived at the conclusion that all 

 shooting stars are " assemblages of fragments, finer or 



* British Association Report, 1865, p. 131. t Ibid, 1864, p. 101. 



X See Mr. Alexander Herschel's paper on the Prismatic Spectra of the 

 August Meteors, 1866, Intellectual Obseeveb, October, 1866. 



