abitable
were they permitted to rain down unimpeded on its surface. We must,
therefore, among the other good qualities of our atmosphere, not forget
that it constitutes a kindly screen, which shields us from a tempest of
missiles, the velocity of which no artillery could equal. It is, in
fact, the very fury of these missiles which is the cause of their utter
destruction. Their anxiety to strike us is so great, that friction
dissolves them into harmless vapour.

Next to a grand meteor such as that we have just described, the most
striking display in connection with shooting stars is what is known as a
shower. These phenomena have attracted a great deal of attention within
the last century, and they have abundantly rewarded the labour devoted
to them by affording some of the most interesting astronomical
discoveries of modern times.

The showers of shooting stars do not occur very frequently. No doubt the
quickened perception of those who especially attend to meteors will
detect a shower when others see only a few straggling shooting stars;
but, speaking generally, we may say that the present generation can
hardly have witnessed more than two or three such occurrences. I have
myself seen two great showers, one of which, in November, 1866, has
impressed itself on my memory as a glorious spectacle.

To commence the history of the November meteors it is necessary to look
back for nearly a thousand years. On the 12th of October, in the year
902, occurred the death of a Moorish king, and in connection with this
event an old chronicler relates how "that night there were seen, as it
were lances, an infinite number of stars, which scattered themselves
like rain to right and left, and that year was called the Year of the
Stars."

No one now believes that the heavens intended to commemorate the death
of the king by that display. The record is, however, of considerable
importance, for it indicates the year 902 as one in which a great shower
of shooting stars occurred. It was with the greatest interest
astronomers perceived that this was the first recorded instance of that
periodical shower, the last of whose regular returns were seen in 1799,
1833, and 1866. Further diligent literary research has revealed here and
there records of startling appearances in the heavens, which fit in with
successive returns of the November meteors. From the first instance, in
902, to the present day there have been twenty-nine visits of the
shower