ASTRONOMY AND METEOROLOGY. 345 



LUMINOUS METEORS. 



The following are extracts from the " Reader," 18G5, in relation 

 to papers of M. St. Claire Deviile, Newton, and Herschel, on the 

 subject of meteors : — , 



When we consider the observations of M. Quetelet, which indi- 

 cate a connection between the apjiearances of shooting stars and 

 auroras and those which correlate these latter with solar and mag- 

 netical phenomena, we can searcelj' be suri^rised to hear that the 

 temperature of our atmosphere is affected by them. 



In a paper recently presented to the Paris Academy by M. Cli. 

 Saint-Claire Deviile, he attempts to show a most intimate con- 

 nection between these phenomena. 



It is now generally held that these little bodies which we are 

 now weighing and numbering are not scattered uniformly in the 

 planetary spaces, but are collected into rings — tangible orbits — 

 round the sun, and that it is when our earth in its orbit breaks 

 through one of the rings or passes near it that its attraction over- 

 powers that of the sun, and causes them to impinge on our atmos- 

 phere, when, their motion being arrested and converted into heat, 

 they become visible to us as meteors, fire-balls, or shooting stars, 

 according to their size. 



Thus we have one ring which furnishes us with the August 

 meteors, and another through which we pass in November. The 

 position of tliese rings in .space is very different ; for while the 

 November one lies almost in the same plane as that in which tlie 

 earth's annual course is performed, tliat of the August shooting 

 stars is considerably inclined to it, and its nodes are situat(!d at 

 the extremities of its major axis. There are also other points of 

 difference ; for while the nodes of the August ring are stationary, 

 those of the November one have a direct projier motion. Now, 

 M. Deviile has, in the most crucial manner, examined the temper- 

 ature of the months of August and November since 1806, and has 

 detected the fact that in both the months there is an increase of 

 temperature about the period of the star showers, and a decrease 

 of temperature in February and May, i. e., in the mid interval 

 between these annual showers in both months. The existence of 

 anomalies in the temperature of these four months has long 

 puzzled meteorologists, and various causes have been assigned ; 

 but the curves which M. Deviile has prej^ared enable him to af- 

 firm that the temperature which each day of tliose months should 

 possess, by virtue of the earth's place in the ecliptic, is affected by 

 a certain coefficient depending upon cosmical causes. To explain 

 this, he reproduces the theory of Erman, that the lowering of the 

 temperature in February and May is caused by the interposition 

 of the meteor rings between us and the sun, causing an "obfus- 

 cation" of that luminary, and that the increase of temperature in 

 August and November is caused by their preventing the radiation 

 of heat from our globe, and pcjssibly by radiating towards us part 

 of the heat they themselves receive from tlie sun. Since this the- 

 ory was enunciated by Erman, there have l)een several objections 

 made to it, and M. Faye has shown, since M. Deville's paper was 



