Not only are the meteorites themselves countless, a matter easily realized, but the families or systems of meteorites appear to be countless also. They, like the systems of Jupiter and Saturn, are each a family within a family--a part of the Solar System, and yet a complete system by themselves. Each circles round the sun, and each consists of millions of tiny meteorites. When I say “tiny,” I mean it of course only by comparison with other heavenly bodies. Many among them may possibly be hundreds of feet and even more in diameter, but the greater proportion appear to be much smaller. It is not impossible that multitudes beyond imagination exist, so small in size that it is impossible we should ever see them, since their dying flash in the upper regions of our atmosphere would be too faint to reach our sight. The earth, traveling on her narrow orbit round the sun, crosses the track of about one hundred of these systems, or rings. Sometimes she merely touches the edge of a ring, and sometimes she goes into the very thick of a dense shower of meteorites. Twice every year, for instance, on the 10th of August and the 11th of November, the earth passes through such a ring, and very many falling stars may be seen on those nights. Numbers of little meteorites, dragged from their orbits and entangled in the earth’s atmosphere, like a fly caught in a spider’s web, give their dying flash, and vanish. It used to be supposed that the August and November meteorites belonged to one single system; but now they are believed to be two entirely distinct systems. [Illustration: THE GREAT SHOWER OF SHOOTING-STARS, NOVEMBER 27, 1872.]