however, not the business of the ordinary gazer to regard such occurrences with more than a passing interest, and he simply watches their progress with a feeling almost amounting to utter indifference. But it serves to while away a leisure hour and to give rise to some curious speculations as to the origin and end of the transient objects which now and again come before his view. The case is different with the scientific observer. He has a practical interest in the phenomenon, and zealously endeavors to record its more remarkable features as they become successively presented, and to watch with increasing diligence its further development in the later hours of the night, remembering that his notes must hereafter have some value in the general comparison of results.
Quetelet's catalogue of observed meteor-showers embraces a large number which obviously belong to the August period, but the majority occurred during the present century. This can not be ascribed to an increasing activity of the meteor-stream. It is at once explained by a greater assiduity of observation, and by the fact that the subject is
Fig. 1.—Broken Streak of a Perseid in Pegasus, August 11th, 11h. 10m.
considered of more importance than formerly. Hence in more recent years the shower has been diligently looked for by many observers; and the result is that we find a large number of records of its displays. In former years it was comparatively neglected. The uncertainty attached to the whole subject rendered it unattractive, for there seemed little likelihood that it would ever become an important branch of astronomy, or yield any valuable results to the patient observer of its nightly displays. Thus we find, among historical records, only a few scattered references to this shower, and we are led, at first, to the inference that it was only rarely visible in consequence of the meteors being slightly dispersed over the orbit in former years. But the irregularities in the dates of its former apparitions may safely be ascribed to other causes than a physical peculiarity of the shower itself. The lack of interest in the subject would cause it frequently to be disregarded. Many of its exhibitions would pass wholly unobserved. Indeed, it would only be described when it recurred with such striking intensity as to force itself upon the attention as a celestial event of considerable interest. Between 811 and 841 it furnished a succession
