40 Mr. H. A. Newton on certain recent 



M. Deville's own conclusions, as given in his later papers, 

 themselves throw doubt upon the existence of any important 

 connexion between the meteors and the temperature of the air. 

 He finds that there is an accordance between the movements of 

 the thermometer in the several months, February, May, August, 

 and November, and that the 12th day of each of these months 

 is the critical day of a marked inflection. But this accordance 

 (or solidarity) between the several months is entirely lost when 

 the days are so combined as to compare, not the days of the same 

 name in the month, but those corresponding to points 90° apart 

 on the ecliptic. But in what possible way can the meteors 

 create oscillations in the temperature of the atmosphere, whose 

 maxima and minima shall in November be one or tw r o days 

 before we reach them, shall in May be at the time of the pas- 

 sage of the earth across the plane of the November group, in 

 August shall be one or two days after the shower, and in Feb- 

 ruary five or six days after the earth crosses the plane of the 

 August ring ? 



3. The paths and probable origin of Shooting-stars. 



The most important recent contribution to the theory of 

 shooting-stars is by M. Schiaparelli, of the Brera Observatory 

 at Milan. It is contained in a series of five letters to Father 

 Secchi, published in the Bullettino Meteorologico of Rome*. 



By a course of reasoning similar to that which led the writer 

 to the same conclusion f, he argues that the mean velocity of 

 the meteoroids is considerably greater than that of the earth in 

 its orbit. Hence their orbits are in general long ellipses or 

 parabolas. 



Assuming then (which is not improbable) that the meteoroids 

 form in the planetary spaces a multitude of currents or conti- 

 nuous rings, having all possible inclinations to the ecliptic, he 

 proceeds to inquire in what way so singular a form of grouping 

 of cosmical matter could have been produced. 



Notwithstanding the uncertainty of the determinations of the 

 velocity of the solar system and of the stars in space, he con- 

 siders it reasonable to assume that the velocities relative to the 

 sun of the various bodies which are scattered through stellar 

 spaces are comparable in magnitude to those of the planets in 

 their orbits. 



Suppose now one of these bodies, a comet for instance, to 

 come by its proper motion so near to the sun that solar attrac- 

 tion far exceeds the attraction of the stars, and yet to be at such 



* Vol. v. Nos. 8, 10, 11, 12; and vol. vi. No. 2. 



t Silliman's American Journal, vol.xxxix. pp. 205-7; and Mem. Acad, 

 of Nat. Sciences, vol. i. pp. 309-31 1 . 



