The number of the Quarterly Journal of Science for May, 1872, contains some articles of considerable interest. The first is by the indefatigable Mr. Proctor, on “Meteoric Astronomy,” in which he embodies a clear and popular summary of the researches which have earned for Signor Schiaparelli this year’s gold medal of the Astronomical Society. Like all who venture upon a broad, bold effort of scientific thought, extending at all into the regions of philosophical theory, Schiaparelli has had to wait for recognition. A simple and merely mechanical observation of a bare fact, barely and mechanically recorded without the exercise of any other of the intellectual faculties than the external senses and observing powers, is at once received and duly honored by the scientific world; but any higher effort is received at first indifferently, or sceptically, and is only accepted after a period of probation, directly proportionate to its philosophical magnitude and importance, and inversely proportionate to the scientific status of the daring theorist.

At first sight this appears unjust, it looks like honoring the laborers who merely make the bricks, and despising the architect who constructs the edifice of philosophy from the materials they provide. Many a disappointed dreamer, finding that his theory of the universe has not been accepted, and that the expected honors have not been showered upon him, has violently attacked the whole scientific community as a contemptible gang of low-minded mechanical plodders, void of imagination, blind to all poetic aspirations, and incapable of any grand and comprehensive flight of intellect. Had these impulsive gentlemen been previously subjected to the strict discipline of inductive scientific training, their position and opinions would have been very different. Their great theories would either have had no existence, or have been much smaller, and they would understand that philosophic caution is one of the characteristic results of scientific training.

Simple facts, which can be immediately proved by simple experiments and simple observations, are at once accepted, and their discoverers duly honored, without any hesitation or delay, but the grander efforts of generalization require careful thought and laborious scrutiny for their verification, and therefore the acknowledgment of their merits is necessarily delayed; but when it does arrive full justice is usually done.

Thus Grove’s “Correlation of the Physical Forces,” the greatest philosophical work on purely physical science of this generation, was commenced in 1842, when its author occupied but a humble position at the London Institution. The book was but little noticed for many years, and, had Mr. Grove (now Sir William Grove) not been duly educated by the discipline above referred to, he might have become a noisy cantankerous martyr, one of those “ill-used men” who have been made familiar to so many audiences by Mr. George Dawson.

Instead of this, he patiently waited, and, as we have lately seen, the well-deserved honors have now been liberally awarded.

In a very few years hence we shall be able to say the same of the once diabolical Darwin, and eight or nine other theorists, who must all be content to take their trial and patiently await the verdict; the time of waiting being of necessity proportionate to the magnitude of the issue.

The theories of Schiaparelli, which, as Mr. Proctor says, “after the usual term of doubt have so recently received the sanction of the highest astronomical tribunal of Great Britain,” are not of so purely speculative a character as to demand a very long “term of doubt.” They are directly based on observations and mathematical calculations which bring them under the domain of the recognized logic of mathematical probability. Those who are specially interested in the modern progress of astronomy should read this article in the Quarterly Journal of Science, which is illustrated with the diagrams necessary for the comprehension of the researches and reasoning of Schiaparelli and others who have worked on the same ground.

I can only state the general results, which are that the meteors which we see every year, more or less abundantly, on the nights of the 10th and 11th of August, and which always appear to come from the same point in the heavens, are then and thus visible because they form part of an eccentric elliptical zone of meteoric bodies which girdle the domain of the sun; and that our earth, in the course of its annual journey around the sun, crosses and plunges more or less deeply into this ellipse of small attendant bodies, which are supposed to be moving in regular orbits around the sun.

Schiaparelli has compared the position, the direction, and the velocity of motion of the August meteors with the orbit of the great comet of 1862, and infers that there is a close connection between them, so close that the meteors may be regarded as a sort of trail which the comet has left behind. He does not exactly say that they are detached vertebrÆ of the comet’s tail, but suggests the possibility of their original connection with its head.

Similar observations have been made upon the November meteoric showers, which by similar reasoning, are associated with another comet; and further yet, it is assumed upon analogy that other recognized meteor systems, amounting to nearly two hundred in number, are in like manner associated with other comets.

If these theories are sound, our diagrams and mental pictures of the solar system must be materially modified. Besides the central sun, the eight planets and the asteroids moving in their nearly circular orbits, and some eccentric comets traveling in long ellipses, we must add a countless multitude of small bodies clustered in elliptical rings, all traveling together in the path marked by their containing girdle, and following the lead of a streaming vaporous monster, their parent comet. We must count such comets, and such rings filled with attendant fragments, not merely by tens or hundreds, but by thousands and tens of thousands, even by millions; the path of the earth being but a thread in space, and yet a hundred or two are strung upon it.

In this article Mr. Proctor seems strongly disposed to return to the theory which attributes solar heat and light to a bombardment of meteors from without, and the solar corona and zodiacal light as visible presentments of these meteors. Still, however, he clings to the more recent explanation which regards the corona, the zodiacal light, and the meteors as matter ejected from the sun by the same forces as those producing the solar prominences. For my own part I shall not be at all surprised if we find that, ere long, these two apparently conflicting hypotheses are fully reconciled.

The progress of solar discovery has been so great since January, 1870, when my ejection theory was published, that I may now carry it out much further than I then dared, or was justified in daring to venture. Actual measurement of the projectile forces displayed in some of the larger prominences renders it not merely possible, but even very probable, that some of the exceptionally great eruptive efforts of the sun may be sufficiently powerful to eject solar material beyond the reclaiming reach of his own gravitating power.

In such a case the banished matter must go on wandering through the boundless profundity of space until it reaches the domain of some other sun, which will clutch the fragment with its gravitating energies, and turn its straight and ever onward course into the curved orbit. Thus the truant morsel from our sun will become the subject of another sun—a portion of another solar system.

What one sun may do, another and every other may do likewise, and, if so, there must be a mutual bombardment, a ceaseless interchange of matter between the countless suns of the universe. This is a startling view of our cosmical relations, but we are driving rapidly towards a general recognition of it.

The November star showers have perpetrated some irregularities this year. They have been very unpunctual, and have not come from their right place. We have heard something from Italy, but not the tidings of the Leonides that were expected. Instead of the great display of the month occurring on the 13th and 14th, it was seen on the 27th. We have accounts from different parts of England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, also from Italy, Greece, Egypt, etc.

Mr. Slinto, in a letter to the Times, estimates the number seen at Suez as reaching at least 30,000, while in Italy and Athens about 200 per minute were observed. They were not, however, the Leonides, that is, they did not radiate from a point in the constellation Leo, but from the region of Andromeda. Therefore they were distinct from that system of small wanderers usually designated the “November meteors,” were not connected with Tempel’s comet (comet 1, 1866), but belong to quite another set.

The question now discussed by astronomers is whether they are connected with any other comet, and, if so, with which comet?

In the “Monthly Notices” of the Royal Astronomical Society, published October 24th last, is a very interesting paper by Professor Herschel, on “Observations of Meteor Showers,” supposed to be connected with “Biela’s comet,” in which he recommends that “a watch should be kept during the last week in November and the first week in December,” in order to verify “the ingenious suggestions of Dr. Weiss,” which, popularly stated, amount to this, viz., that a meteoric cloud is revolving in the same orbit as Biela’s comet, and that in 1772 the earth dashed through this meteoric orbit on December 10th. In 1826 it did the same, on December 4th; in 1852 the earth passed through the node on November 28th, and there are reasons for expecting a repetition at about the same date in 1872.

The magnificent display of the 27th has afforded an important verification of these anticipations, which become especially interesting in connection with the curious history of Biela’s comet, which receives its name from M. Biela, of Josephstadt, who observed it in 1826, calculated its orbit, and considered it identical with the comets of 1772, 1805, etc. It travels in a long eccentric ellipse, and completes its orbit in 2410 days—about 6¾ years. It appeared again, as predicted, in 1832 and 1846.

Its orbit very nearly intersects that of the earth, and thus affords a remote possibility of that sort of collision which has excited so much terror in the minds of many people, but which an enthusiastic astronomer of the present generation would anticipate with something like the sensational interest which stirs the soul of a London street-boy when he is madly struggling to keep pace with a fire-engine.

The calculations for 1832 showed that this comet should cross the earth’s orbit a little before the time of the earth’s arrival at the same place; but as such a comet, traveling in such an orbit, is liable to possible retardations, the calculations could only be approximately accurate, and thus the sensational astronomer was not altogether without hope. This time, however, he was disappointed; the comet was punctual, and crossed the critical node about a month before the earth reached it.

As though to compensate for this disappointment, the comet at its next appearance exhibited some entirely new phenomena. It split itself into two comets, in such a manner that the performance was visible to the telescopic observer. Both of these comets had nuclei and short tails, and they alternately varied in brightness, sometimes one, then the other, having the advantage. They traveled on at a distance of about 156,000 miles from each other, with parallel tails, and with a sort of friendly communication in the form of a faint arc of light, which extended as a kind of bridge, from one to the other. Besides this, the one which was first the brighter, then the fainter, and finally the brighter again, threw out two additional tails, one of which extended lovingly towards its companion.

The time of return in 1852 was of course anxiously expected by astronomers, and careful watch was kept for the wanderers. They came again at the calculated time, still separated as before.

They were again due in 1859, in 1866, and, finally, at about the end of last November, or the beginning of the present month. Though eagerly looked for by astronomers in all parts of the civilized world, they have been seen no more since 1852.

What, then, has become of them? Have they further subdivided? Have they crumbled into meteoric dust? Have they blazed or boiled into thin air? or have they been dragged by some interfering gravitation into another orbit? The last supposition is the most improbable, as none of the visible inhabitants of space have come near enough to disturb them.

The possibility of a dissolution into smaller fragments is suggested by the fact that, instead of the original single comet, or the two fragments, meteoric showers have fallen towards the earth at the time when it has crossed the orbit of the original comet, and these showers have radiated from that part of the heavens in which the comet should have appeared. Such was the case with the magnificent display of November 27th, and astronomers are inclining more and more to the idea that comets and meteors have a common origin—the meteors are little comets, or comets are big meteors.

In the latest of the “Monthly Notices,” of the Royal Astronomical Society, published last week, is a paper by Mr. Proctor, in which he expands the theory expounded three years ago by an author whom your correspondent’s modesty prevents him from naming, viz., that the larger planets—Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune—are minor suns, ejecting meteoric matter from them by the operation of forces similar to those producing the solar prominences.

Mr. Proctor subjects this bold hypothesis to mathematical examination, and finds that the orbit of Tempel’s comet and its companion meteors correspond to that which would result from such an eruption occurring on the planet Uranus. An eruptive force effecting a velocity of about thirteen miles per second, which is vastly smaller than the actually measured velocity of the matter of the solar eruptions, would be sufficient to thrust such meteoric or cometary matter beyond the reclaiming reach of the gravitation of Uranus, and hand it over to the sun, to make just such an orbit as that of Tempel’s comet and the Leonides meteors.

He shows that other comets and meteoric zones are similarly allied to other planets, and thus it may be that the falling stars and comets are fragments of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, or Neptune. Verily, if an astronomer of the last generation were to start up among us now, he would be astounded at modern presumption.

The star shower of November 27th, and its connection with Biela’s broken and lost comet, referred to in my last letter, are still subjects of research and speculation. On November 30th Professor Klinkerfues sent to Mr. Pogson, of the Madras Observatory, the following startling telegram: “Biela touched earth on 27th. Search near Theta Centauri.”

Mr. Pogson searched accordingly from comet-rise to sunrise on the two following mornings, but in vain; for even in India they have had cloudy weather of late. On the third day, however, he had “better luck,” saw something like a comet through an opening between clouds, and on the following days was enabled to deliberately verify this observation and determine the position and some elements of the motion of the comet, which displayed a bright nucleus, and faint but distinct tail.

This discovery is rather remarkable in connection with the theoretical anticipation of Professor Klinkerfues; but the conclusion directly suggested is by no means admitted by astronomers. Some, have supposed that it is not the primary Biela, but the secondary comet, or offshoot, which grazed the earth, and was seen by Mr. Pogson; others that it was neither the body, the envelope, nor the tail of either of the comets which formed the star shower, but that the meteors of November 27th were merely a trail which the comet left behind.

A multitude of letters were read at the last and previous meeting of the Astronomical Society, in which the writers described the details of their own observations. As these letters came from nearly all parts of the world, the data have an unusual degree of completeness, and show very strikingly the value of the work of amateur astronomical observers.

By the collation and comparison of these, important inductions are obtainable. Thus Professor A.S. Herschel concludes that the earth passed through seven strata of meteoric bodies, having each a thickness of about 50,000 miles—in all about 350,000 miles. As the diameter of the visible nebulosity of Biela’s comet was but 40,000 miles when nearest the earth in 1832, the great thickness of these strata indicates something beyond the comet itself.

Besides this, Mr. Hind’s calculation for the return of the primary comet shows that on November 27th it was 250 millions of miles from the earth.

Those, however, who are determined to enjoy the sensation of supposing that they really have been brushed by the tail of a comet, still have the secondary comet to fall back upon. This, as already described, was broken off the original, from which it was seen gradually to diverge, but was still linked to it by an arch of nebulous matter.

If this divergence has continued, it must now be far distant—sufficiently far to afford me an opportunity of safely adding another to the numerous speculations, viz., that we may, on November 27th, have plunged obliquely through this connecting arm of nebulous matter, which was seen stretching between the parent comet and its offshoot. The actual position of the meteoric strata above referred to is quite consistent with the hypothesis.