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LV. Notice of the Meteors of the 9th and 1 0th of August, 



1844, as witnessed at Bruges. By Thomas Forster, M.B., 



F.R.A.S. 



To Richard Taylor, Esq. 



Dear Sir, 



A S many hasty articles respecting the extraordinary quan- 



■^^ tity of meteors seen on the 10th of this month have been 



inserted in the papers, I send you the particulars of this phae- 



nomenon as observed by me at Bruges. 



August 9. — Night clear except a few isoane clouds. The an- 

 nual meteors began to appear tonight, but I only counted 

 seventeen of any considerable size. 



August 10. — Night clear. I watched the meteors tonight 

 till near daybreak; they began to be visible at half-past 8 

 o'clock and continued without intermission all night, though 

 most plentiful between 10 and 12 o'clock. Their number was 

 prodigious, amounting to an average of ninety-six per hour, of 

 which I determined about seventy per hour to have a decided 

 point of convergence somewhere about Antares and Scorpio, 

 a circumstance which I think almost as puzzling as their pe- 

 riodic appearance. They were of various colours, and gene- 

 rally left long white trains behind them in their track, but not 

 such large and lasting ti'ains as those left by the meteors of the 

 10th of August, 1811, which I have already described in your 

 Magazine for that year*. I am Sir, yours, &c., 



August 19, 1844, T. Forster. 



L VI. 071 the Action of the Yellow Rays of Light on Vegeta- 

 tion. By Robert Harkness, Esq. 



To the Editors of the Philosophical Magazine and Journal, 

 Gentlemen, 



^I^HE Philosophical Magazine for January contains a paper 

 -■- upon the Action of Light on Vegetation by Dr. Gard- 

 ner, in which he states that one of the results of his conclu- 

 sions is, that yellow light by its influence produces the decom- 

 position of carbonic acid and gives rise to the formation of the 

 hydro-carbonaceous compound called chlorophylle. This cir- 

 cumstance is highly probable, for we know that the maximum 

 of light is in this ray, and also that the green colour of vege- 

 tables is dependent upon, in a great measure, the intensity of 

 solar light. But in the fourth paragraph of his paper it is 



* A curious circumstance. — 1 find by the journals that the great meteor 

 seen all over England, August 18, 1783, is reported to have been also seen 

 all over Europe. Now I cannot find any account of it on the continent, 

 nor is it mentioned in any of the reports of the Palatine Society under 

 that day. 



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