We now arrive at the final inquiry, _what relations did the body which afforded the meteoric shower sustain to the earth_? Was it of the nature of a satellite, or terrestrial comet, that revolves around the earth as its centre of motion? Was it a collection of nebulous, or cometary matter, which the earth encountered in its annual progress? or was it a comet, which chanced at this time to be pursuing its path along with the earth, around their common centre of motion? It could not have been of the nature of a satellite to the earth, (or one of those bodies which are held by some to afford the meteoric stones, which sometimes fall to the earth from huge meteors that traverse the atmosphere,) because it remained so long stationary with respect to the earth. A body so near the earth as meteors of this class are known to be, could not remain apparently stationary among the stars for a moment; whereas the body in question occupied the same position, with hardly any perceptible variation, for at least two hours. Nor can we suppose that the earth, in its annual progress, came into the vicinity of a _nebula_, which was either stationary, or wandering lawless through space. Such a collection of matter could not remain stationary within the solar system, in an insulated state, for, if not prevented by a motion of its own, or by the attraction of some nearer body, it would have proceeded directly towards the sun; and had it been in motion in any other direction than that in which the earth was moving, it would soon have been separated from the earth; since, during the eight hours, while the meteoric shower was visible, the earth moved in its orbit through the space of nearly five hundred and fifty thousand miles. The foregoing considerations conduct us to the following train of reasoning. First, if all the meteors which fell on the morning of November 13, 1833, had been collected and restored to their original connexion in space, they would of themselves have constituted a nebulous body of great extent; but we have reason to suppose that they, in fact, composed but a small part of the mass from which they emanated, since, after the loss of so much matter as proceeded from it in the great meteoric shower of 1799, and in the several repetitions of it that preceded the year 1833, it was still capable of affording so copious a shower on that year; and similar showers, more limited in extent, were repeated for at least five years afterwards. We are therefore to regard the part that descended only as _the extreme portions of a body or collection of meteors, of unknown extent, existing in the planetary spaces_.