Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 18.djvu/201

Rh from the catalogues of foreign observers. This shower, however, escaped the detection of Heis and others, who had been engaged in similar investigations, though it appears to be of more importance than several radiants in its vicinity which have been independently determined by several observers. At the end of July, 1878, the writer noted a few brilliant, slow meteors, from a point at 96° + 72°, and this may have been an early evidence of the radiant which is placed in a region bare of large trees between Telescopium and Polaris. It is just north of the triangle of faint stars (l. p. q. Camelopardi of Bode), east of a line drawn from β Aurigœ to Polaris, and will, no doubt, be frequently reobserved in future years, though the shower of Perseids usually monopolizes attention at the epoch of its annual returns.

There is a shower near η Persei (No. 2), well defined, on August 6th-12th, August 21st-23d, and September 6th-15th. At the latter



epoch it furnishes some fine meteors and constitutes a prominent display. The diagram (Fig. 5) gives the positions of eighty-six paths conforming to this radiant, observed at Bristol, and at several foreign stations in September.

The ordinary designation of Perseids for the special meteor-shower of August 10th is always understood in its individual application, though it must not be supposed that this is the only shower of Perseids visible in that month. The fact is, there are many separate showers directed from that constellation early and late in August, so that we require