Litelligence and Miscellaneous Articles. 1 53 



There is much reason for regret in the circumstance that the scien- 

 tific body of our day has almost entirely lost the character of the col- 

 lector of suggestions worthy of consideration, hints of useful ten- 

 dency, and valuable but isolated information. If the minutes of 

 the Royal Society in the time which preceded the publication of the 

 Principia should now and then excite a smile, it will be checked by 

 the obvious consideration that we owe much of what has been since 

 done to the currency which the disposition to communicate, and the 

 facilities for doing it, aiForded to mere suggestions. Much might, 

 perhaps, be done by encouraging the slighter and less elaborate form 

 of communication, which it is one object of the Monthly Notices to 

 perpetuate ; and your Council hope that those Fellows who have 

 shown themselves capable of greater things, will not forget that the 

 small matter which, thinking only of themselves, they might be in- 

 clined to throw on one side, may possibly meet the difficulty, or ad- 

 vance the object, of some other member of the Society. At the 

 least, it will add attraction to the proceedings of the ordinary meet- 

 ing, which it is so important to the welfare of the Society, and, 

 through it, of astronomy, to render both instructive and interesting. 



XXIV. Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles. 



RESEARCHES ON SHOOTING STARS. BY M. COULVIER-GRAVIER. 



UP to the present time, says the author of this memoir, shooting 

 stars have not been the object of observations regularly followed 

 up and prolonged for a sufficient time, to enable us to arrive at any 

 general law. In truth, it has been imagined that determinate periods 

 were observable when these meteors showed themselves infinitely 

 more numerous than at ordinary times ; but the periodical returns 

 to which it has been thought they might be subjected, begin to ap- 

 pear problematical, and perhaps they would never have been admitted 

 if the investigation had been commenced by seeking to ascertain the 

 appearances for each night of the year. Such a task, indeed, would 

 have been very arduous, and it is this doubtless that has discouraged 

 observers. For my own part, having been engaged since 1829 in 

 this class of researches, to which I first devoted my attention with a 

 particular object, I have since pursued them for their own sake, and 

 from the year 1841 I have kept regular registers of my observations. 

 I have found it desirable, for this purpose, to take an associate in 

 my labours, M. Chartiaux, who observes one half of the heaven 

 while I am employed on the other. I myself note down each ap- 

 pearance, both those which my assistant announces aloud and those 

 which I myself see. In this manner it is impossible to take one ob- 

 servation twice over, which is otherwise almost inevitable when se- 

 veral persons being engaged in observing at the same time, each 

 notes down what he perceives in the portion of the heaven which is 

 assigned to him. I may perhaps explain thus the very extraordinary 

 numbers noted by four persons who made observations simultane- 

 ously on the same spot. 



