popular phrase in which they figured as "the tears of St.
Lawrence." But the association could not be taken on trust from mediaeval
authority. It had to be proved scientifically, and this Quetelet of
Brussels succeeded in doing in December, 1836.[1203]

A second meteoric revolving system was thus shown to exist. But its
establishment was at once perceived to be fatal to the "cosmical cloud"
hypothesis of Olmsted. For if it be a violation of probability to
attribute to one such agglomeration a period of an exact year, or
sub-multiple of a year, it would be plainly absurd to suppose the
movements of _two_ or more regulated by such highly artificial
conditions. An alternative was proposed by Adolf Erman of Berlin in
1839.[1204] No longer in _clouds_, but in closed _rings_, he supposed
meteoric matter to revolve round the sun. Thus the mere circumstance of
intersection by a meteoric of the terrestrial orbit, without any
coincidence of period, would account for the earth meeting some members
of the system at each annual passage through the "node" or point of
intersection. This was an important step in advance, yet it decided
nothing as to the forms of the orbits of such annular assemblages; nor
was it followed up in any direction for a quarter of a century.

Hubert A. Newton took up, in 1864,[1205] the dropped thread of inquiry.
The son of a mathematical mother, he attained, at the age of
twenty-five, to the dignity of Professor of Mathematics in Yale
University, and occupied the post until his death in 1896. The diversion
of his powers, however, from purely abstract studies stimulated their
effective exercise, and constituted him one of the founders of meteoric
astronomy.

A search through old records carried the November phenomenon back to the
year 902 A.D., long distinguished as "the year of the stars." For in the
same night in which Taormina was captured by the Saracens, and the cruel
Aghlabite tyrant Ibrahim ibn Ahmed died "by the judgment of God" before
Cosenza, stars fell from heaven in such abundance as to amaze and
terrify beholders far and near. This was on October 13, and recurrences
were traced down through the subsequent centuries, always with a day's
delay in about seventy years. It was easy, too, to derive from the dates
a cycle of 33-1/4 years, so that Professor Newton did not hesitate to
predict the exhibition of an unusually striking meteoric spectacle on
November 13-14, 1866.[1206]

For the astronomica