out of sight. The maximum
rush occurred a little after one o'clock on the morning of November 14,
when attempts to count were overpowered by frequency. But during a
previous interval of seven minutes five seconds, four observers at Mr.
Bishop's observatory at Twickenham reckoned 514, and during an hour
1,120.[1211] Before daylight the earth had fairly cut her way through
the star-bearing stratum; the "ethereal rockets" had ceased to fly.

This event brought the subject of shooting stars once more vividly to
the notice of astronomers. Schiaparelli had, indeed, been already
attracted by it. The results of his studies were made known in four
remarkable letters, addressed, before the close of the year 1866, to
Father Secchi, and published in the _Bulletino_ of the Roman
Observatory.[1212] Their upshot was to show, in the first place, that
meteors possess a real velocity considerably greater than that of the
earth, and travel, accordingly, to enormously greater distances from the
sun along tracks resembling those of comets in being very eccentric, in
lying at all levels indifferently, and in being pursued in either
direction. It was next inferred that comets and meteors equally have an
origin foreign to the solar system, but are drawn into it temporarily by
the sun's attraction, and occasionally fixed in it by the backward pull
of some planet. But the crowning fact was reserved for the last. It was
the astonishing one that the August meteors move in the same orbit with
the bright comet of 1862--that the comet, in fact, is but a larger
member of the family named "Perseids" because their radiant point is
situated in the constellation Perseus.

This discovery was quickly capped by others of the same kind. Leverrier
published, January 21, 1867,[1213] elements for the November swarm,
founded on the most recent and authentic observations; at once
identified by Dr. C. F. W. Peters of Altona with Oppolzer's elements for
Tempel's comet of 1866.[1214] A few days later, Schiaparelli, having
recalculated the orbit of the meteors from improved data, arrived at the
same conclusion; while Professor Weiss of Vienna pointed to the
agreement between the orbits of a comet which had appeared in 1861 and
of a star-shower found to recur on April 20 (Lyraids), as well as
between those of Biela's comet and certain conspicuous meteors of
November 28.[1215]

These instances do not seem to be exceptional. The number of known or
suspected accordance