The November Shooting Stars. 455 



part in the November ring of ineteors, — which. I have ventured 

 to call the jewel of the ring, — and that each meteor in the 

 whole ring, and in this condensed part or clovA, moves in a 

 nearly circular orbit round the sun in a period which may be 

 about eleven days less than that of the earth. The earth (for 

 example) encountered the densest portion of this cloud in 

 November, 1833 ; but the next year this portion passed eleven 

 days before the earth returned to that point of its orbit ; the 

 following year the difference amounted to twenty-two days ; 

 so that at the end of about thirty-three years it must gain one 

 entire revolution, and return nearly to the position where it 

 must encounter the earth. (See diagram on page 452.) Pro- 

 fessor Newton shows that the same result would follow by 

 supposing the period of the ring eleven days longer than the 

 earth's, but seems on the whole to incline to the former 

 theory. 



I have taken some of these explanatory details from a letter 

 lately written to the Neiv Yorlc Times by Professor Loomis, of 

 Tale College ; also from the American Journal of Science, as 

 quoted in the British Association Report for 1864, p. 96, con- 

 taining Professor Newton's data and theories as given by 

 himself. In referring to past recurrences of the phenomenon, 

 he remarks that, " a want of punctuality of one, two, or even 

 three years in the return of the display may be accounted for 

 by the revolution of the earth on its axis, by which observers 

 were deprived of a view of the spectacle during a part of its 

 existence ; " but ends his communication by predicting with 

 considerable confidence, a " maximum display on the morning 

 of the 14th November, 1866." 



The morning of the 1 4th of November came — and now let 

 us make an essay in celestial perspective, and see what had 

 happened. Let us divest our minds, if possible, of the idea of 

 a canopy of sky-rockets, and " from the apparent configura- 

 tions and movements of objects as seen projected on the 

 imaginary concave of the heavens, conclude, so far as they can 

 be thence concluded, their real geometrical relations to each 

 other and to the spectator." What were the real bearings of 

 th'e earth and the stream of meteors on that memorable morn- 

 ing when this "terrestrial ball'''' had been for some short 

 time plunged in the current ? Somewhat, I think, like this. 

 Never mind, reader, if I have made the earth a little too large 

 in proportion, or the stream too narrow, or too defined in 

 outline. The inclination of the two paths is, or should be, 17° : 

 the course of the meteors is retrograde, as stated by Professor 

 Newton : and the shaded appearance of the stream is meant to 

 indicate the sudden transitions of richness which occurred in 

 the star-shower, causing the meteors to come at the rate some- 



