For not in one night only, but in several nights during three or four years, and that not once only but once in every thirty-three years, thousands and tens of thousands appear to have been stolen by our earth from the meteorite-ring, never again to be restored. Yet each time we touch the ring, we find the abundance of little meteorites in nowise seemingly lessened. When speaking of a “ring” of meteorites, it must not be supposed that necessarily the meteorites form a whole unbroken ring all round the long oval orbit. There may be no breaks. There may be a more or less thin scattering throughout the entire length of the pathway. But the meteorites certainly seem to cluster far more densely in some parts of the orbit than in other parts, and it was about the size of the densest cluster that so much curiosity was felt. Little can be positively known, though it is very certain that the cluster must be enormous in extent. Three or four years running, as our earth, after journeying the whole way round the sun, came again to that point in her orbit where she passes through the orbit of the Leonides, she found the thick stream of meteorites still pouring on, though each year lessening in amount. Taking into account this fact, and also the numbers that were seen to fall night after night, and also the speed of our earth, a “rough estimate” was formed. The length of this dense cluster is supposed to reach to many hundreds of millions of miles. The thickness or depth of the stream is calculated to be in parts over five hundred thousand miles, and the breadth about ten times as much as the depth. Each meteorite is probably at a considerable distance from his neighbor; but the whole mass of them, when in the near neighborhood of the sun, must form a magnificent sight. And if this be only a third-rate system, what must a first-rate system be like? And how many such systems are there throughout the sun’s wide domains? The most powerful telescope gives us no hint of the existence of these rings till we find ourselves in their midst. It may be that they are numbered by thousands, even by millions. The whole of the Solar System--nay, the very depths of space beyond--may, for aught we know, be crowded with meteorite systems. Every comet may have his stream of meteorites following him. But though the comet is visible to us, the meteorites are not. Billions upon billions of them may be ever rushing round our sun, entirely beyond our ken, till one or another straggler touches our atmosphere to flash and die as a “shooting star” in our sight. We have, and with our present powers we can have, no certainty as to all this. But I may quote here the illustration of a well-known astronomical writer on the subject.