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never to be again recognised.
But our interest in cometary orbits has
been added to by the discovery that, owing
to the causes just cited, a comet, if it does
not separate into discrete parts like Biela’s,
must in time have its parts spread out so
as to cover a sensible part of the orbit, and
that, when the earth passes through such
part of a comet’s orbit, a meteor shower is
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