350 Miss Zornlin on the Periodical Shooting Stars. 



seemed to burn." The latter date, allowing for the difference 

 of style in that age, would form a close approximation to the 

 present 12th or 13th day of the month. 



Similar in character to the November shooting stars, are 

 those of August; and, like the former, they also are accom- 

 panied by other meteoric phaenomena. Thus, on both occa- 

 sions, lightning has frequently been noticed ; and luminous ap- 

 pearances in the clouds were observed by myself on the night 

 of August 11, 1839*, much resembling those noticed by M. 

 Wartmann at Geneva, on the night of November 12, 1836 f. 

 And in the Sixth Report of the British Association for the 

 Advancement of Science, we meet with an account, commu- 

 nicated by Dr. Traill, of a splendid aurora borealis, which 

 was observed on August 11, 1836. A very remarkable in- 

 stance of the August periodical meteors, which is mentioned 

 in Colonel Reid's work ' On the Law of Storms,' may be 

 worth citing in this place J. The phaenomenon occurred du- 

 ring the hurricane at Barbadoes in 1831, and the relation is 

 given in an extract from an account published at Bridgetown 

 in that island, immediately after it occurred. The hurricane 

 had been raging in all its fury, accompanied by incessant 

 lightning. At about three o'clock a.m. on the 1 1th of August, 

 a temporary cessation in the violence of the wind occurred. 

 u The lightning having also ceased, for a few moments only at 

 a time, the blackness in which the town was enveloped was 

 inexpressibly awful. Fiery meteors were presently seen fall- 

 ing from the heavens; one in particular, of a globular form, 

 and a deep red hue, was observed by the writer to descend 

 perpendicularly from a vast height. It evidently fell by its 

 specific gravity, and was not shot or propelled by any ex- 

 traneous force. On approaching the earth with accelerated 

 motion, it assumed a dazzling whiteness, and an elongated 

 form, and dashing to the ground in Beckwith Square, op- 

 posite the stores of Messrs. U. D. Grierson and Co., it splashed 

 around in the same manner as melted metal would have done, 

 and was instantly extinct: its brilliancy, and the spattering of 

 its particles on the earth, gave it the resemblance of a body of 

 quicksilver of equal bulk." Shortly afterwards, the lightning 

 recurred in terrific grandeur, and the hurricane in increased 

 violence §. 



• Phil. Mag., December 1839. [S. 3. vol. xv. p. 441.] 



f Phil. Mag., September 1837. [S. 3. vol. xi. p. 261.] 



j Some of the severest storms on record have occurred in the months 

 of August and November. It would form an interesting subject of inquiry, 

 whether such storms have any connexion with the appearance or the non- 

 appearance of the periodical meteoric phaenomena at those times. 



§ Lieut.-Col. Reid on the Law of Storms, 1st edit., p. 29, 



