There are many other periodic showers of shooting stars besides those notable Leonids. None of the other showers, however, possess the same importance as the Leonids, nor do they ever manifest celestial splendor comparable with that of those of the 13th of November. The Perseids, for example, which appear from the 9th to the 11th of August, are tolerably constant in their appearance, but have little spectacular interest. There is also another shower called the Andromedes, which occurs on the 27th of November. It has produced certain displays, one of the most remarkable of which took place in 1872. The meteors were excessively numerous on that occasion, but they were so short in their paths, and so insignificant as to brilliance, that the spectacle, though of great scientific interest, could not be compared as to splendor with that of the Leonids in 1866. There are also several other showers which appear with greater or less regularity. Each of these possesses two distinct characteristics by which its meteors can be identified. One of these characters is the date on which the shower appears. The other is the constellation or point on the heavens from which all the meteors appear to radiate. Thus when we speak of the Andromedes on the 27th of November, we express that the shower on the 27th November comes from the part of the heavens marked by the constellation of Andromeda. A striking discovery has been made which points to a curious connection between comets and shooting stars. It has been found that the track followed by a great shower of meteors is often identical with the track pursued by a comet. It is wholly beyond the province of mere chance that an orbit such as that of the Leonids should, both as to its size and its position in space, be likewise that of a comet, unless the comet and the meteor swarm were objects related to each other. The great sun guides our world through its long annual journey. The mighty mass of the earth yields compliance to the potent sway of the ruler of our system. But the sun does not merely exercise a control over the vast planets which circulate around him. The supreme law of gravitation constrains the veriest mote that ever floated in a sunbeam, with the same unremitting care that it does the mightiest of planets. Thus it is that each little meteor is guided in its journeys for untold ages. Each of these little objects hurries along, deflected at every moment, to follow its beautifully curved path by the incessant attraction of the sun. At last, however, the fatal plunge is taken. The long wanderings of the meteor have come to an end and it vanishes in a streak of splendor. COMETS.—SIR JOHN HERSCHEL