Comets have been known to disintegrate. Biela's comet even disappeared entirely, so that during a shower of Biela meteors in November, 1885, an actual fragment of the lost comet fell upon the earth, at Mazapil, Mexico. And as the Bielid meteors encounter the earth with the relatively low velocity of ten miles a second, we may expect to capture other fragments in the future. Numerous observers saw the weird disintegration of the nucleus of the great comet of 1882, well recognized as a member of the family of the comet of 1843. As these comets are fellow voyagers through space along the same orbit, probably all five members of the family, with perhaps others, were originally a single comet of unparalleled magnitude. The Brooks comet of 1890 affords another instance of fragmentary nucleus. The oft-repeated action of solar forces tending to disrupt the mass of a comet more and more, and scatter its material throughout space, the secular dismemberment of all comets becomes an obvious conclusion. During the hundreds of millions of years that these forces are known to have been operant, the original comets have been broken up in great numbers, so that elliptical rings of opaque meteoric bodies now travel round the sun in place of the comets. These bodies in vast numbers are everywhere through space, each too small to reflect an appreciable amount of sunlight, and becoming visible only when they come into collision with our outer atmosphere. The practical identity of several such meteor streams and cometary orbits has already been established, and there is every reason for assigning a similar origin to all meteoric bodies. Meteors, then, were originally parts of comets, which have trailed themselves out to such extent that particles of the primal masses are liable to be picked up anywhere along the original cometary paths. The historic records of all countries contain trustworthy accounts of meteoric showers. Making due allowances for the flowery imagery of the oriental, it is evident that all have at one time or another seen much the same thing. In A. D. 472, for instance, the Constantinople sky was reported alive with flying stars. In October, 1202, "stars appeared like waves upon the sky; and they flew about like grasshoppers." During the reign of King William II occurred a very remarkable shower in which "stars seemed to fall like rain from heaven." But the showers of November, 1799 and 1833, are easily the most striking of all. The sky was filled with innumerable fiery trails and there was not a space in the heavens a few times the size of the moon that was not ablaze with celestial fireworks. Frequently huge meteors blended their dazzling brilliancy with the long and seemingly phosphorescent trails of the shooting stars.