In 1872, when the comets should have been visible, if they still existed, a very startling thing happened. Out of the northern heavens, along the track of the missing comets, where the earth crossed it, on the night of the 27th of November came glistening and dashing the fiery spray of a storm of meteors. It was the dust and fragments of the lost comet of Biela, which, after being split in two in 1852, had evidently continued the process of disintegration until its cometary character was completely lost. It seems to have made a truly ghostly exit, for right after the meteor swarm of 1872 a mysterious cometary body was seen, which was supposed at the time to be the missing comet itself, and which, it is not altogether improbable, may have been a fragment of it. Three days after the meteors burst over Europe, it occurred to Professor Klinkerfues, of Berlin, that if they came from Biela's comet the comet itself ought to be seen in the southern hemisphere retreating from its encounter with the earth. On November 30th he sent his now historical telegram to Mr. Pogson, an astronomer at Madras; "Biela touched earth November 27th. Search near Theta Centauri." For thirty-six hours after the receipt of this extraordinary request Mr. Pogson was prevented by clouds from scanning the heavens with his telescope. When the sky cleared at last, behold there was a comet in the place indicated in the telegram! It was glimpsed again the next night, and then clouds intervened, and not a trace of it was ever seen afterward. But every year, on the 27th of November, when the earth crosses the orbit of the lost comet, meteoric fragments come plunging into our atmosphere, burning as they fly. Ordinarily their number is small, but when, as in 1872, a swarm of the meteors is in that part of their orbit which the earth crosses, there is a brilliant spectacle. In 1885 this occurred, and the world was treated to one of the most splendid meteoric displays on record. [Illustration: THE ATTENDANTS OF ALPHA PERSEI.]