In the chapter on “Comet-hunting as a Hobby,” after describing how popular it was some years ago, when cash prizes were offered to successful finders, an instance is given thereof in the story related by the late Professor E. E. Barnard, entitled “The House that was Built with Comets.” As a matter of fact, it was built by means of financial aid obtained in this way. Shooting stars also come in for their due share of attention, as well as fireballs which present rather an alarming aspect until one realizes that the sudden blaze of light indicates their annihilation. The book is illustrated with prints, charts, drawings, and photographs, and permits for their use are gratefully acknowledged to the Astronomer Royal, in connection with photographs obtained at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich; and to the directors of the Cape of Good Hope and Johannesburg Observatories in Africa, and the Yerkes Observatory in U. S. A. Also for permission kindly given by the director of Harvard College Observatory, U. S. A., to make a copy from a drawing of Donati’s comet, made by Professor Bond in the year 1858. Grateful acknowledgment is made to Mr. W. F. Denning (Bristol) for the loan of the photograph of the Strathmore meteorite, which fell December 3, 1917, making a hole in the roof of Outh Lodge, Keithwick. The author is specially indebted to Mr. Denning for his kindness in looking over the MS. of Chapter VIII, which deals with “Meteor Streams and Shooting Stars”; and to Dr. A. C. D. Crommelin for a like favor in connection with the chapters dealing with “Halley’s Comet as Seen in 1910,” and the “Origin of Comets and Meteors,” the most important chapter in the book. It incorporates the views advanced by my father some thirty-five years ago, concerning the ejection theory of comets, stanchly advocated by Dr. Crommelin, as compared with the more modern capture theory. The chapter is also of special interest, as, in a way, it partly supplies the missing chapter in my father’s unfinished work, _Old and New Astronomy_. MARY PROCTOR. LONDON, _April, 1926_. CHAPTER ONE COMETS AS PORTENTS “Lo! from the dread immensity of Space, Returning with accelerated pace, The rushing comet to the sun descends: And, as he shrinks below the shading Earth, With awful train projected o’er the Heavens, The guilty nations tremble.” —THOMSON.