It has been said that the August meteors appear every year. The explanation of this is that they have, in the course of many ages, been scattered around the whole circuit of their orbit, so that each year, about the 10th of August, when the earth crosses their track, some of the meteors are encountered. They are like an endless railroad train travelling upon a circular track. The November meteors also appear, in small numbers, every year, a fact indicating that some of them, too, have been scattered all around their orbit, although the great mass of them is still concentrated in an elongated swarm, and a notable display can only occur when this swarm is at the crossing simultaneously with the earth. These meteors were eagerly awaited in 1899, when it was hoped that the splendid displays of 1833 and 1866 might be repeated, but, unfortunately, in the meantime the planets Jupiter and Saturn, by their disturbing attractions, had so altered the position of the path of the meteors in space that the principal swarm missed the connection. There are many other periodical meteor showers, generally less brilliant than those already mentioned, and some astronomers think that all of them had their origin from comets.