space.

The _effective_ perception of this fact[1199] amounted to a discovery,
as Olmsted and Twining, who had "simultaneous ideas" on the subject,
were the first to realize. Denison Olmsted was then Professor of
Mathematics in Yale College. He showed early in 1834[1200] that the
emanation of the showering meteors from a fixed "radiant" proved their
approach to the earth along nearly parallel lines, appearing to diverge
by an effect of perspective; and that those parallel lines must be
sections of orbits described by them round the sun and intersecting that
of the earth. For the November phenomenon was now seen to be a
periodical one. On the same night of the year 1832, although with less
dazzling and universal splendour than in America in 1833, it had been
witnessed over great part of Europe and in Arabia. Olmsted accordingly
assigned to the cloud of cosmical particles (or "comet," as he chose to
call it), by terrestrial encounters with which he supposed the
appearances in question to be produced, a period of about 182 days; its
path a narrow ellipse, meeting, near its farthest end from the sun, the
place occupied by the earth on November 12.

Once for all, then, as the result of the star-fall of 1833, the study of
luminous meteors became an integral part of astronomy. Their membership
of the solar system was no longer a theory or a conjecture--it was an
established fact. The discovery might be compared to, if it did not
transcend in importance, that of the asteroidal group. "C'est un nouveau
monde planetaire," Arago wrote,[1201] "qui commence a se reveler a
nous."

Evidences of periodicity continued to accumulate. It was remembered that
Humboldt and Bonpland had been the spectators at Cumana, after midnight
on November 12, 1799, of a fiery shower little inferior to that of 1833,
and reported to have been visible from the equator to Greenland.
Moreover, in 1834 and some subsequent years, there were waning
repetitions of the display, as if through the gradual thinning-out of
the meteoric supply. The extreme irregularity of its distribution was
noted by Olbers in 1837, who conjectured that we might have to wait
until 1867 to see the phenomenon renewed on its former scale of
magnificence.[1202] This was the first hint of a thirty-three or
thirty-four year period.

The falling stars of November did not alone attract the attention of the
learned. Similar appearances were traditionally associated with August
10 by the