268 M. Quetelet on the alleged greater number 



in order to obtain a definitive solution of the problem. Re- 

 cently, MM. Olmsted, Arago, Biot and other illustrious phi- 

 losophers have been occupied with this interesting subject *. 

 They have furnished ingenious ideas and fresh views, by which 

 science will profit. It is true that some diversities are ob- 

 servable in the hypotheses which they have advanced, but 

 these documents are not themselves the less to be prized and 

 preserved. Who knows, but that the light, to the investiga- 

 tion of which every one earnestly applies, may not one day 

 spring from the clashing of opinions ? 



II. On the question whether Shooting Stars are more numerous at 

 certain times than at others. By M. Quetelet. t 



M. Quetelet informed the Academy that during the night of the 

 12th of November he employed himself at the observatory of the 

 city in noticing the shooting stars, for the purpose of ascertaining, 

 whether in fact, their appearance were more frequent than at 

 another season. His observations presented nothing remarkable 

 as to the number of these meteors. 



We remember that M. Arago, in giving to the Academy of Sciences 

 at Paris an account of the results of the numerous observations 

 which he had produced in support of this fact, quoted amongst other 

 numbers as being extraordinary, that of 170 shooting stars which 

 the students of astronomy in the observatory of Paris entrusted by 

 him with making observations, had counted during the night of the 

 13th of November. For appreciating this number, however, and 

 establishing a comparison, facts were wanting, that is to say, the 

 knowledge of the mean number of those meteors which may be ob- 

 served in a night at any other season of the year. For the purpose 

 of determining this number, M. Quetelet entered upon some inves- 

 tigations relative both to his former observations on shooting stars, 

 and to those of other persons, and he arrived at this result, that 

 the number of shooting stars which are observed, on an average, 

 in an hour, looking constantly towards the same quarter of the 

 heavens, is about eight, and that several observers, placed so as to 

 observe the different regions of the heavens, may count double the 

 number. Accordingly, the number of 170 shooting stars observed at 

 Paris by several persons on the night of the 12th of November would 

 not be at all astonishing ; on the contrary, it would come very near to 



••See the article on shooting stars by Professor Olmsted in the Ame- 

 rican Journal of Science, or the French translation in vol. iii. of the 

 Compilateur, October 1836, page 52; the notices of MM. Arago and 

 Biot in the Comptes Rendus des Seances de I'Academie des Sciences de Paris, 

 vol. iii. pp. 560, 629, 663; a notice by Professor Gautier, in the Bibl. Univ., 

 vol. li. p. 189, &c. 



t From Vlnstitut, and originally derived from the Bulletin de VAcad. 

 Royale de Bruxelles, 



