The
meteors were both larger and more numerous than in 1872. Their numbers
in the densest part of the drift were estimated by Professor Newton at
75,000 per hour, visible from one spot to so large a group of spectators
that practically none could be missed. Yet each of these multitudinous
little bodies was found by him to travel in a clear cubical space of
which the edge measured twenty miles![1228] Thus the dazzling effect of
a luminous throng was produced without jostling or overcrowding, by
particles, it might almost be said, isolated in the void.

Their aspect was strongly characteristic of the Andromede family of
meteors. "They invariably," Mr. Denning wrote,[1229] "traversed short
paths with very slow motions, and became extinct in evolved streams of
yellowish sparks." The conclusion seemed obvious "that these meteors are
formed of very soft materials, which expand while incalescent, and are
immediately crumbled and dissipated into exiguous dust."

The Biela meteors of 1885 did not merely gratify astronomers with a
fulfilled prediction, but were the means of communicating to them some
valuable information. Although their main body was cut through by the
moving earth in six hours, and was not more than 100,000 miles across,
skirmishers were thrown out to nearly a million miles on either side of
the compact central battalions. Members of the system were, on the 26th
of November, recorded by Mr. Denning at the hourly rate of about 130;
and they did not wholly cease to be visible until December 1. They
afforded besides a particularly well-marked example of that diffuseness
of radiation previously observed in some less conspicuous displays.
Their paths seemed to diverge from an area rather than from a point in
the sky. They came so ill to focus that divergences of several degrees
were found between the most authentically determined radiants. These
incongruities are attributed by Professor Newton to the irregular shape
of the meteoroids producing unsymmetrical resistance from the air, and
hence causing them to glance from their original direction on entering
it. Thus, their luminous tracks did not always represent (even apart
from the effects of the earth's attraction) the true prolongation of
their course through space.

The Andromedes of 1872 were laggards behind the comet from which they
sprang; those of 1885 were its avant-couriers. That wasted and disrupted
body was not due at the node until January 26, 1886, si