ASTRONOMY AND METEOROLOGY. 361 



SHOOTING STARS OF AUGUST 10, 1853. 



The periodical display of meteors on the 10th and llth of August, 

 1853, appeared in its usual form, and in numbers not much diminished. 

 At New Haven, Conn., from midnight of the 10th, until 3 25, A. M., 

 of the llth of August, 388 meteors were noticed, and their direction 

 recorded. M. Coulvier Gravier, at Paris, reported the hourly number 

 of meteors of the evening of the 9th, to have been 49, and on the 

 llth, 56. At Aintab, Turkey, the appearance of the meteors in about 

 their usual number, was noticed by the Rev. Mr. Pratt, of the Ameri- 

 can Mission. 



All the observations made during the year 1853, agree with those of 

 previous years, both as regards numbers, general direction, and greater 

 frequency after midnight, and confirm what may be considered as suf- 

 ficiently well established, the cosmical origin of shooting stars. 



ON THE PRIMITIVE FORM AND DIMENSIONS OF THE ASTEROID 



PLANET. 



The following paper was read at the American Association, Cleve- 

 land, by Prof. Alexander. Of two supposable forms of equilibrium of 

 a rotating body, that of the asteroid planet was very possibly one of 

 very great ellipticity. The rotation being supposed to take place 

 from W. to E., when the rupture of the planet took place, and the 

 asteroids were thus separated, the fragments derived from the portion 

 farthest from the sun would have a velocity of translation nearly 

 equivalent to the orbitat velocity derived from the portion nearest to 

 the sun, which would have a velocity of translation equivalent to the 

 difference of those same two velocities. Fragments elsewhere origi- 

 nating would be still differently affected. Now the excess of velocity 

 in the first instance would cause the asteroid to describe a new orbit, 

 in which the radius- vector of the original planet would represent, very 

 nearly, the perihelion distance, while the difference of velocities would 

 cause the opposite fragment or asteroid to commence its motion very 

 nearly in aphelion. The same view of the subject, thus far, has been 

 taken by Dr. Lamont, though he has not included the great ellipticity 

 of the original planet as a part of his hypothesis, which seems, never- 

 theless, to be requisite, in order to an adequate effect. Dr. Lamont 

 has, moreover, designated some of the asteroids, which seem to have 

 originated in the way here specified. Now if (differing somewhat 

 from these) we select those asteroids whose orbits differ much in size, 

 and yet have the perihelion distance in the orbit of one nearly equal 

 to the aphelion distance in that of the other, and knowing the existing 

 orbitual velocities at these points, we may approximate to the differ- 

 ence of velocities of the two fragments in question. With this, and 

 the time of rotation of the planet derived from Kirkwood's Analo- 

 gy, we may then obtain an approximation to the planet's equatorial 

 diameter ; which, however, would most probably be somewhat too 



