running about every thirty-three years. The last time we passed through the swarm was in 1899, and then the show was very disappointing. Here in England thick clouds prevented our seeing much, and there will not be another chance for us to see it at its best until 1932. These November meteors are called Leonids, because they _seem_ to come from a group of stars named Leo, and though the most noticeable they are not the only ones. A shower of the same kind occurs in August too, but the August meteors, called Perseids, because they seem to come from Perseus, revolve in an orbit which takes a hundred and forty-two years to traverse! So that only every one hundred and forty-second year could we hope to see a good display. When all these facts had been gathered up, it seemed without doubt that certain groups of meteors travelled in company along an elliptical orbit. But there remained still something more--a bold and ingenious theory to be advanced. It was found that a comet, a small one, only to be seen with the telescope, revolved in exactly the same orbit as the November meteors, and another one, larger, in exactly the same orbit as the August ones; hence it could hardly be doubted that comets and meteors had some connection with each other, though what that connection is exactly no one knows. Anyway, we can have no shadow of doubt when we find the comet following a marked path, and the meteors pursuing the same path in his wake, that the two have some mysterious affinity. There are other smaller showers besides these of November and August, and a remarkable fact is known about one of them. This particular stream was found to be connected with a comet named Biela's Comet, that had been many times observed, and which returned about every seven years to the sun. After it had been seen several times, this astonishing comet split in two and appeared as two comets, both of which returned at the end of the next seven years. But on the next two occasions when they were expected they never came at all, and the third time there came instead a fine display of shooting stars, so it really seemed as if these meteors must be the fragments of the lost comet. It is very curious and interesting to notice that in these star showers there is no certain record of any large meteorite reaching the earth; they seem to be made up of such small bodies that they are all dissipated in vapour as they traverse our air. CHAPTER X THE GLITTERING HEAVENS