Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 79.djvu/197

Rh

 Observed on November 14, 1866, described as a pale yellow band of light about half the diameter of the moon. A at 2:41, B at 2:43 , C at 2:45 (The largest star in the cluster is Aldebaran.)

33 years. The showers of 1833 and 1866–7–8 produced many persistent trains. The Leonid shower in 1901 was very meagre as compared with those of 1833 and 1866, yet a number of persistent trains were observed at that time, which was the date of the last meeting of the earth and that part of the orbit of the Leonid meteor swarm where the meteoric masses are clustered most thickly.

The Perseid meteors appearing about the eleventh or twelfth of August are far more evenly distributed along in the track of their orbit than the Leonid meteors and hence there is no recurrent period when they are particularly abundant. Both the Leonids and Perseids are very