a a

STAR SHOWERS OF THE YEAR.

tion for doing so. The fee for each apprenticeship effected
with the Superintendent’s assistance is limited to five shillings.
Those of the public who continue, in the face of the caution
issued by the Board of Trade, to employ and pay persons
by law unauthorized to procure employment on board ship for
boys, are not only wasting their money, and incurring a
penalty in each case of 20/., but are absolutely encouraging
the breaking of the law, as well as aiding the Crimp and Slop-
seller in setting aside those officers whose duty, under the law,
is to enrol Apprentices.

A printed list of persons authorized to engage or supply
Mates, Midshipmen, Apprentices, Boys, and Seamen for the
Merchant Service, together with a list of the names of some
unauthorized persons who have been convicted, but who still
adyertise in their own, or in other names, may be obtained
from the Registrar General of Seamen, 6, Adelaide Place,
London Bridge, E.C.

STAR SHOWERS OF THE YEAR.

NY UMEROUS legends and stories
: in all ages affirm the fact of
. the fall of stones from the sky,
but until a comparatively recent
period philosophers received
_ them with hesitation, or doubted

» the reality of their occurrence.
m@ The great fall of stones at
Sienna in 1794, and at Benares
in 1798, directed particular at-
tention to the subject, and now
scarcely a year passes in which
one or more well-authenticated instances does not occur.
They have occasionally caused destruction both of life and
property, as in the case of the fireball which fell at Sha-
habad, India, in 1810. The stones emitted by this fire-
ball killed several persons, burned five villages, and
destroyed the crops. In April, 1803, an extraordinary
shower of stones fell near L’Aigle, in Normandy, and led
the French Government to institute an inquiry into the
circumstances connected with it. Within a space of
seven miles by three, the number of stones that had
fallen was estimated at not less than two or three
thousand, the largest of them being as much as eighteen
pounds in weight. The British Museum contains nume-
rous specimens of these extraordinary bodies, varying in
size from immense blocks to mere dust-like particles,
illustrating all the principal stone-falls that have yet
occurred. Repeated analyses prove them to consist only
of substances we are already familiar with ; iron, the most
abundant terrestrial metal, being a common constituent.
When first fallen, their temperature is elevated to a great
degree, so that the outer surface is covered with a black
shining crust, the result of the intense heat developed in
their flight. In some instances these stones have been
scattered from what is called a fireball as it passed along ;
in others the meteor has been observed to descend
obliquely to the earth, and the stone or fragment after-
wards dug out. Most of us are familiar with the appear-
ance of a shooting star, anda shooting star is a fireball or
a meteor on a small scale—a different manifestation of
the same kind of thing. They are well known to appear
in large numbers on particular nights, the 10th of

August being one, when we may almost always see them
if the sky is clear, Though observed regularly about
that time in various parts of the world, and traced back in
historic records for upwards of a thousand years, their

a |
annual recurrence in August does not seem to have been

thought of until announced by M. Quetelet, in 1836,

since which time they have hardly ever disappointed the |

expectation of astronomers. The astronomical origin of
shooting stars became apparent as soon as their annual
recurrence was ascertained, since no other explanation
could be given which would account satisfactorily for
their appearing in such numbers on a particular night,
and all emerging from the same quarter of the sky. The
idea of their terrestrial origin, which had to some extent
previously prevailed, was then almost abandoned, for 2+
was clear that the earth passed through a region occupied
by the meteors every year about the 10th of August, and
their real path in space naturally formed the subject of
inquiry. It was subsequently believed that the pheno-
menon might be explained by supposing a ring of shooting
stars to revolve round the sun at much the same distance
as the earth, and so placed as to intersect the earth’s path
at the point where the earth arrives on the 10th of August.
Things remained much in this state until the occurrence
of the great November star showers of 1866-7, from which
we may date a new epoch in meteoric astronomy.

On the morning of the 14th of November, 1866, the
earth made its passage through a portion of a meteoric
stream about thirty thousand miles in thickness; and
some eight thousand shooting stars were visible in
London alone, between midnight and sunrise, falling so
rapidly shortly after one o'clock that it was quite im-
possible to count them. The meteors were remarkable
for their uniform gradual disappearance, as well as for
the luminous streaks which many of them left behind.
These were mostly of an emerald colour, tapering at each
end, and fading gradually from the extremities to the
centre. Some of them were visible many minutes (the
most persistent undergoing various changes); one ob-
served by Dr. Schmidt, at Athens, being visible for fifty-
one minutes, and then only obscured by the approach of
day. Previous to this, however, astronomers had not
been idle. On the contrary, observers had been diligently
on the watch, mapping the course of all the shooting
stars that could be observed, and in England and
America especially, great attention was paid to their
appearance. The British Association appointed a com-
mittee to collect and report on trustworthy accounts, and
still later Professor Alexander Herschel arranged a series
of preconcerted observations of various star showers (such

as had often been attempted before), and computed the |

real paths, height, velocity, and weight of many of the
brightermeteors. Then came the recent series of November
star showers (similar to those of 1799 and 1833), which
Professor Newton had successfully predicted on a like

hypothesis to that which seemed to account for the |

shooting stars of August. It was left for Signor Schia-
parelli, an Italian astronomer at Milan, to promulgate
the theory of their cometic origin, or at least to show

that comets and meteors move in very similar paths. |

The connexion between comets and shooting stars is no
longer doubtful, the paths of many of the comets, whose
orbits approach the path of the earth, being identical with
corresponding meteoric streams. The orbit of the No-
vember meteors (fig. 1) is almost the same as that of a

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