If you plan to observe a meteor shower, here are some suggestions. You will need: Acquaintance with the stars, both faint and bright, in the region containing the radiant of the shower. Comfortable reclining lawn-chair. Warm clothing (including blankets) for winter showers or summer ones at high elevations. A patient family that will not only approve of your observing but will help you get up to watch after midnight, when most showers are at their best. A corner of your back yard (or sun roof) where you can shade your eyes from street lights and other illumination. Timepiece, preferably with radiant dial. Sit back and watch Nature put on her show. Any records you make may have some scientific value even if you note only these two things: Hourly number of meteors seen. Condition of the sky (clear, hazy, cloudy, etc.) during each hour of your watch.[6] At present, we know of only one instance in which it seems probable that a meteorite came to earth during a meteor shower. The Mazapil, Mexico, iron meteorite fell at 9:00 p.m. on November 27, 1885, during a return of the now very weak Bielid meteor shower. Scientists still cannot decide whether or not a mere coincidence was involved in this case. As we have already mentioned, most of the cosmic particles rushing into our atmosphere evaporate and do not reach the earth at all except as the tiny congealed droplets and spherules of their own melt. Some cosmic particles, the _micro-meteorites_, are so tiny that they “stall” rather than fall down. These minute objects do not melt or disintegrate and so preserve their original cosmic form unchanged. Scientists have developed various methods for the collection of both of these types of material in order that at least rough estimates of their rate of accumulation on the earth can be made. One of the simplest methods of collecting this so-called “meteoritic dust” is to expose a sticky glycerine-coated glass microscope slide for at least a 24-hour period in a protected spot well away from locations where any industrial contamination is in the air. At the end of the period of exposure, the “catch” on the slide is examined microscopically, and the individual trapped particles are counted and classified. Meteoritic dust is also carried down to the ground by rain, snow, and hail and can therefore be obtained by filtering rainwater or melted glacier-ice, snow, and hail. Such collection efforts have been plagued by the difficulty of identifying the particles. How can a collector be sure that the dust he has trapped, even though magnetic and possibly even in part metallic, does not come from some smelter or other industrial plant? Because of such uncertainties, the current estimates of the annual deposit of meteoritic dust for the world range from approximately 20 tons to several million tons. We need improved collection and identification techniques if we are to obtain trustworthy figures.