I have had your Pronouncing Gazetteer of the World before me for some weeks. Having long felt the necessity of a work of this kind, I have spent no small amount of time in examining yours. It seems to me so important to have a comprehensive and authentic gazetteer in all our colleges, academies, and schools, that I am induced in this instance to depart from my general rule in regard to giving recommendations. Your work has evidently been prepared with immense labor; and it exhibits proofs from beginning to end that knowledge has presided over its execution. The rising generation will be greatly benefited, both in the accuracy and extent of their information, should your work be kept as a book of reference on the table of every professor and teacher in the country. Transcriber's Notes: Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed. Simple typographical errors were corrected; occasional unbalanced quotation marks retained. Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained. Text uses both "star shower" and "star-shower"; not changed here. "Keppler" is spelled that way in this text. End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Meteoric astronomy, by Daniel Kirkwood