It is perhaps most probable, that the meteoric showers of August and December emanate from the same body. I know of nothing repugnant to this conclusion, although it has not yet been distinctly made out. Had the periods of the earth and of the meteoric body been so adjusted to each other that the latter was contained an exact even number of times in the former; that is, had it been _exactly_ either a year or half a year; then we might expect a similar recurrence of the meteoric shower every year; but only a slight variation in such a proportion between the two periods would occasion the repetition of the shower for a few years in succession, and then an intermission of them, for an unknown length of time, until the two bodies were brought into the same relative situation as before. Disturbances, also, occasioned by the action of Venus and Mercury, might wholly subvert this numerical relation, and increase or diminish the probability of a repetition of the phenomenon. Accordingly, from the year 1830, when the meteoric shower of November was first observed, until 1833, there was a regular increase of the exhibition; in 1833, it came to its maximum; and after that time it was repeated upon a constantly diminishing scale, until 1838, since which time it has not been observed. Perhaps ages may roll away before the world will be again surprised and delighted with a display of celestial fire-works equal to that of the morning of November 13, 1833. LETTER XXVIII. FIXED STARS. ----"O, majestic Night! Nature's great ancestor! Day's elder born, And fated to survive the transient sun! By mortals and immortals seen with awe! A starry crown thy raven brow adorns, An azure zone thy waist; clouds, in heaven's loom Wrought, through varieties of shape and shade, In ample folds of drapery divine, Thy flowing mantle form; and heaven throughout Voluminously pour thy pompous train."--_Young._ SINCE the solar system is but one among a myriad of worlds which astronomy unfolds, it may appear to you that I have dwelt too long on so diminutive a part of creation, and reserved too little space for the other systems of the universe. But however humble a province our sun and planets compose, in the vast empire of Jehovah, yet it is that which most concerns us; and it is by the study of the laws by which this part of creation is governed, that we learn the secrets of the skies.