Page:The Music of the Spheres.djvu/254

 again they flew around the sun, but it was a farewell tour, for one streak of light followed the other out into space, grew fainter and fainter and finally disappeared, never to be seen again. But just here is the best part of the story, for although the comets have completely vanished, in their place every year comes a radiant display of meteors! These meteors—the Andromids, coming on the 27th of November regularly—are believed to be the "fragments of the lost comet of Biela"! Thus, Serviss, with a touch of art, gives the shivery atmosphere of Poe to such an uncanny proceeding.

Although comets have here been placed with planets and planetoids under the heading of "The Children of the Sun," we are not sure, as yet, of the origin of comets. There is one theory which suggests that comets may be the waste material of the solar system; the left-overs, as it were, after the planetary system was formed. Again, perhaps, a great comet may be material drawn