THE AUGUST METEORS. 
323 
has been diligently looked for by many observers ; and the 
result is that we find a large number of records of its displays. 
In former years it was comparatively neglected. The uncer- 
tainty attached to the whole subject rendered it unattractive, 
for there seemed little likelihood that it would ever become an 
important branch of astronomy, or yield any valuable results to 
the patient observer of its nightly displays. Thus we find, 
amongst historical records, only a few scattered references to 
this shower, and we are led, at first, to the inference that it was 
only rarely visible in consequence of the meteors being slightly 
dispersed over the orbit in former years. But the irregularities 
in the dates of its former apparitions may safely be ascribed to 
other causes than a physical peculiarity of the shower itself. 
The lack of interest in the subject would cause it frequently to 
be disregarded. Many of its exhibitions would pass wholly 
unobserved. Indeed, it would only be described when it recurred 
with such striking intensity as to force itself upon the attention 
as a celestial event of considerable interest. It appears to have 
been thus observed in the following years : — 
811, July 25 
820, July 25-30 
824, July 26-28 
830, July 26 
833, July 27 
835, July 26 
841, July 25-30 
924, July 27-30 
925, July 27-30 
926, July 27-30 
933, July 25-30 
1243, August 2 
1451, August 7 
1709, August 8 
1779, August 9-10 
1781, August 8 
1784, August 6-9 
1789, August 10 
1798, August 9 
1799, August 9-10 
1800, August 10 
Between 811 and 841 it furnished a succession of brilliant dis- 
plays at the end of July. Then there occurred a break until 
eighty-three years later, when it several times reappeared with 
similar splendour. A wide interval of more than three hundred 
years brings us to the year 1243, when it seems to have been 
again recognized, after which, until 1709, there is only one 
other observation of the shower (in 1451). During the last 
hundred years it has, however, been frequently observed, 
though many of the recent displays cannot be compared with 
those of ancient times. The intermittent and rare character of 
the shower as it existed between the tenth and eighteenth cen- 
turies proves that few returns were of a sufficiently imposing 
nature to be recorded, and that possibly the conditions were 
opposed to its appearance. If the meteors of the orbit during 
that period were condensed in the region of their derivative 
comet, then we can understand the singular paucity of observa- 
