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THE AUGUST METEOES. 
By W. F. DENNING, F.R.A.S. 
T HE August shower of meteors forms one of the most 
attractive and important of the annual phenomena wit- 
nessed by astronomers, and the display is awaited every year 
with considerable interest — not only by a large section of 
habitual observers, but by many persons who have their atten- 
tion called to it in a mere casual way by the frequency and 
brightness of the meteors. For on the 10th of August, if the 
night is clear and the moonlight not very strong, a person can- 
not be long in the open before his curiosity is excited by num- 
bers of these ‘ falling stars 9 which, he will notice, travelling 
swiftly athwart the sky, and leaving lines of phosphorescence 
along their paths. It is, however, not the business of the 
ordinary gazer to regard such occurrences with more than a 
passing interest, and he simply watches their progress with a 
feeling almost amounting to utter indifference. But it serves 
to while away a leisure hour and to give rise to some curious 
speculations as to the origin and end of the transient objects 
which now and again come before his view. The case is 
different with the scientific observer. He has a practical 
interest in the phenomenon, and zealously endeavours to record 
its more remarkable features as they become successively pre- 
sented, and to watch with increasing diligence its further 
development in the later hours of the night, remembering that 
his notes must hereafter have some value in the general com- 
parison of results. 
Quetelet’s catalogue of observed meteor showers embraces a 
large number which obviously belong to the August period, but 
the majority occurred during the present century. This can- 
not be ascribed to an increasing activity of the meteor stream. 
It is at once explained by a greater assiduity of observation, 
and by the fact that the subject is considered of more import- 
ance than formerly. Hence in more recent years the shower 
