me with regard to the meteors. They exist in such myriads,
that though the earth swallows up millions every thirty-three years,
plenty are left for future showers. The diagram (Fig. 76) will explain
the way in which the earth makes her captures. We there see the orbit
in which our globe moves around the sun, as well as the elliptic path of
the meteors, though it should be remarked that it is not convenient to
draw the figure exactly to scale, so that the path of the meteors is
relatively much larger than here represented. Once each year the earth
completes its revolution, and between the 13th and the 16th of November
crosses the track in which the meteors move. It will usually happen that
the great shoal is not at this point when the earth is passing. There
are, however, some stragglers all along the path, and the earth
generally catches a few of these at this date. They dart into our
atmosphere as shooting stars, and form what we usually speak of as the
November meteors.

It will occasionally happen that when the earth is in the act of
crossing the track it encounters the bulk of the meteors. Through the
shoal our globe then plunges, enveloped, of course, with the surrounding
coat of air. Into this net the meteors dash in countless myriads, never
again to emerge. In a few hours' time, the earth, moving at the rate of
eighteen miles a second, has crossed the track and emerges on the other
side, bearing with it the spoils of the encounter. Some few meteors,
which have only narrowly escaped capture, will henceforth bear evidence
of the fray by moving in slightly different orbits, but the remaining
meteors of the shoal continue their journey without interruption;
perhaps millions have been taken, but probably hundreds of millions have
been left.

Such was the occurrence which astonished the world on the night between
November 13th and 14th, 1866. We then plunged into the middle of the
shoal. The night was fine; the moon was absent. The meteors were
distinguished not only by their enormous multitude, but by their
intrinsic magnificence. I shall never forget that night. On the
memorable evening I was engaged in my usual duty at that time of
observing nebulae with Lord Rosse's great reflecting telescope. I was of
course aware that a shower of meteors had been predicted, but nothing
that I had heard prepared me for the splendid spectacle so soon to be
unfolded. It was about ten o'clock at night when an exclamation from an
at