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suspicions as to their greatly advertised accuracy. We shall find out for ourselves whether the morning of Nov. 14, 1867, was clear enough in England or not. We suspect that it was a charming morning, in England—
    Monthly Notices, R.A.S. 28-32:
    Report by E.J. Lowe, Highfield House, night of Nov. 13-14, 1867:
    “Clear at 1:10 a.m.; high, thin cumuli, at 2 a.m., but sky not covered until 3:10 a.m., and the moon’s place visible until 3:55 a.m.; sky not overcast until 5:50 a.m.”
    The determination of the orbital period of thirty-three years and a quarter, but with appearances of a period of thirty-three years, was arrived at by Prof. Newton by searching old records, finding that, in an intersection-period of thirty-three years, there had been extraordinary meteoric displays, from the year 902 a.d. to the year 1833 a.d. He reminds me of an investigator who searched old records for appearances of Halley’s Comet, and found something that he identified as Halley’s Comet, exactly on time, every seventy-five years, back to times of the Roman Empire. See the Edinburgh Review, vol. 66. It seems that he did not know that orthodoxy does not attribute exactly a seventy-five year period to Halley’s Comet. He got what he went looking for, anyway. I have no disposition for us to enjoy ourselves at Prof. Newton’s expense, because, surely enough, his method, if regarded as only experimental, or tentative, is legitimate enough, though one does suspect him of very loose behavior in his picking and choosing. But Dr. Adams announced that, upon mathematical grounds, he had arrived at the same conclusion.
    The test:
    The next return of the Leonids was predicted for November, 1899.
    Memoirs of the British Astronomical Association, 9-6:
    “No meteoric event ever before aroused such widespread interest, or so grievously disappointed anticipation.”
    There were no Leonids in November, 1899.
    It was explained. They would be seen next year.
    There were no Leonids in November, 1900.
    It was explained. They would be seen next year.
    No Leonids.
    Vaunt and inflation and parade of the symbols of the infinitesimal calculus; the pomp of vectors, and the hush that surrounds quaternions: but when an axis of coordinates loses its rectitude, in the service of a questionable selection, disciplined symbols become a rabble. The Most High of Mathematics—and one of his proposed prophets points to the sky. Nowhere near where he points, something is found. He points to a date—nothing happens.
    Prof. Serviss, in Astronomy in a Nutshell, explains. He explains that the Leonids did not appear when they “should” have appeared, because Jupiter and Saturn had altered their orbits.
    Back in the times of the Crusades, and nothing was disturbing the Leonids—and if you’re stronger for dates than I am, think of some more dates, and nothing was altering the orbit of the Leonids—discovery of America, and the Spanish Armada, in 1588, which, by some freak, I always remember, and no effects by Jupiter and Saturn—French Revolution and on to the year 1866, and still nothing the matter with the Leonids—but, once removed from “discovery” and “identification,” and that’s the end of their period, diverted by Jupiter and Saturn, old things that had been up in the sky at least as long as they had been. If we’re going to accept the calculi at all, the calculus of probabilities must have a hearing. My own opinion, based upon reading many accounts of November meteors, is that decidedly the display of 1833 did not repeat in 1866: that a false priest sinned and that an equally false highpriest gave him sanction.
    The tragedy goes comically on. I feel that, to all good Neo-astronomers, I can recommend the following serenity from an astronomer who was unperturbed by what happened to his science, in November, 1899, and some more Novembers—
    Bryant, A History of Astronomy, p. 252:
    That the meteoric display of 1899 had failed to appear—“as had been