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198 stream following directly in the track which Biela's Comet should have followed, and 12 weeks after the comet's calculated departure from the place, corroborated the inference, already drawn from the previously known examples of agreements, that a rich assemblage of meteors moving in the rear of a cometary body follows the comet very closely in its

Fig. 104. POSITION OF BIELA'S COMET AT THE TIME OF THE METEOR SHOWERS OF 1798, 1838, AND 1872.

orbit. The conclusion now seems recognised as inevitable that Biela's Comet has ceased to exist as a concrete body. What has just been stated appears, however, to be only a portion of the truth, for showers of Andromedes seen in 1798, 1830, and 1838 would seem to have preceded Biela's Comet along its track at different distances varying between th and rd of a circuit.