ly at Naples, but on investigation it turned out to be
a myth. These annual meteors in the upper air are supposed to be only
small ones, and to be dissipated into dust and vapor at the time of
their sudden heating; so numerous are they that 40,000 have been counted
in one evening, and an exceptionally great display comes about once in
331/4 years. The inference from their periodicity is, that they are small
bodies moving round the sun in orbits of their own, and that whenever
the earth crosses their orbits, thereby getting into their path, a
splendid display of meteors results. A second display, a year later,
usually follows the exceptionally great display just mentioned,
consequently the train of meteors is of great length. Some of these
meteors just enter the atmosphere of the earth, then pass out again
forever, with their direction of motion altered by the influence of the
attraction of the earth. He here called attention to the accompanying
diagram of the orbits of meteors.

The lecturer next invited attention to a hollow globe of linen or some
light material; it was about 2 ft. or 2 ft. 6 in. in diameter, and
contained hidden within it the great electro-magnet, weighing 2 cwt., so
often used by Faraday in his experiments. He also exhibited a ball made
partly of thin iron; the globe represented the earth, for the purposes
of the experiment, and the ball a meteorite of somewhat large relative
size. The ball was then discharged at the globe from a little catapult;
sometimes the globe attracted the ball to its surface, and held it
there, sometimes it missed it, but altered its curve of motion through
the air. So was it, said the lecturer, with meteorites when they neared
the earth. Photographs from drawings, by Professor A. Herschel, of the
paths of meteors as seen by night were projected on the screen; they all
seemed to emanate from one radiant point, which, said the lecturer, is a
proof that their motions are parallel to each other; the parallel lines
seem to draw to a point at the greatest distance, for the same reason
that the rails of a straight line of railway seem to come from a distant
central point. The most interesting thing about the path of a company of
meteors is, that a comet is known to move in the same orbit; the comet
heads the procession, the meteors follow, and they are therefore, in all
probability, parts of comets, although everything about these difficult
matters cannot as yet be entirely explaine