for the year 1867. Xvil 
watch the sky on a clear night without witnessing several of 
these shooting stars, and it is estimated that each portion of 
space the size of the earth and in the neighbourhood of its 
orbit contains, at least, 13,000 of these bodies, and that 
could all, large and small, that enter our atmosphere in 
every twenty-four hours be counted they would not be 
less than, 400,000,000. It nevertheless seems now to be 
satisfactorily established, that the bulk of these bodies 
is congregated in rings, like rings of dust, as it were, 
each little particle of which it 1s composed revolving about 
the sun like a miniature planet. The existence of two such 
rings is now considered to be satisfactorily proved, one 
intersecting the plane of the earth’s orbit in August, with an 
inclination of 79 deg., the other in November, with an angle 
of J7 deg. It further appears that portions of these rings or 
meteor orbits are denser than others; and that there 
are immensely more numerous particles crowded together in 
particular parts. These rings are now known as the August 
and November rings, from their nodes being respectively in 
those parts of the ecliptic occupied by the earth in those 
months. The motion of the constituent particles of these 
rings is in a contrary direction to that of the earth, so 
that we always meet them. 
It is to the investigations of Professor Newton, of 
America, that we owe most of what is known of the 
November ring, and he concludes the probable time of 
revolution of these rings around the sun to be 3546 days, 
our period bemg 365:25 days. From this it follows that 
the earth will come into contact with the centre group (or 
any other particular part of the ring) once in every 1338 
years. He also states that we shall come very near to the 
centre of the dense group every thirty-three years. The 
shower commenced about eleven at night on the 13th—that 
is, meteors were seen in great numbers ; but from midnight 
A 
