AEROLITES. 119 



and 13tli of November, 1833, the fire-bails ami sliootlng stars 

 all emerged from one and the same quarter of the heavens 

 namely, in the vicinity of the star y in the constellation Leo, 

 and did not deviate from this point, although the star changed 

 its apparent height and azimuth during the time of the observ- 

 ation. Such an independence of the Earth's rotation shows 

 that the luminous body must have reached our atmosphere from 

 witlwut. According to Encke's computation* of the whole 



* Eucke, ivxVo^gewd.., Annalen, bd. xxxiii. (1834), s. 213. Arago, 

 in the Annuaire for 183G, p. 291. Two letters which I wrote to Beii- 

 zenberg, May 19 and October 22, 1837, on the conjectural j)recession 

 of the nodes in the orbit of periodical falls of shooting stars. (Benzen 

 berg's Sternsch., s. 207 and 209.) Olbers subsequently adopted this 

 opinion of the gradual retardation of the November phenomenon 

 (Astron. Nadir., 1838, No. 372, s. 180.) If I may venture to combine 

 two of the falls of shooting stars mentioned by the Arabian writers 

 with the epochs found by Boguslawski for the fourteenth ceutuiy, I 

 obtain the following more or less accordant elements of the movements 

 of the nodes : 



In Oct., 902, on the night in which King Ibrahim ben Ahmed died, 

 there fell a heavy shower of shooting stars, '• like a fiery rain ;" and 

 this year was, therefore, called the year of stars. (Conde, Hist, de la 

 Domin. de los Arabes, p. 346.) 



On the 19th of Oct., 1202, the stars were in motion all night. " They 

 fell like locusts." {Comptes Rendus, 1837, t. i., p. 294; and Frsehn, in 

 the Bull, de V Acadimie de St. Pitershourg, t. iii., p. 308. ") 



On the 2ist Oct., O.S., 1366, " die sequente post festum XL millia Vir- 

 ginum ah hora matutitta usque ad korarii primam vises sunt quasi stellar 

 de ccelo cadere continuo, et in tanta multitudine, quod nemo narrare suf 

 ficit.''^ This remarkable notice, of which we shall speak more fully in 

 the subsequent part of this work, was found by the younger Von Bo- 

 guslawski, in Benesse (de Horowic) de Weitmil or Weithmtil, Chron- 

 icon Ecclesice Pragensis, p. 389. This chronicle may also be found in 

 the second part of Scriptores rerum Bohemicarum, by Pelzel and Do- 

 browsky, 1784. (Sebum., Astr. Nachr., Dec, 1839.) 



On the night between the 9th and 10th of November, 1787, many fall 

 ing stars were observed at Manheim, Southern Germany, by Hemmer 

 (Kamtz, Meteor., th. iii., s. 237.) 



After midnight, on the 12th of November, 1799, occurred the extra- 

 ordinary fall oi" stars at Cumana, which Bonpland and myself have de 

 scribed, and which was observed over a great part of the earth. {Relat 

 Hist., t. i., p. 519-527.) 



Between the 12th and 13th of November, 1822, shooting stars, inter- 

 mingled with fire-balls, were seen in large numbers by Kloden, al 

 Potsdam. (Gilbert's Ann., bd. Ixxii., s. 291.) 



On the 13th of November, 1831, at 4 o'clock in the morning, a greal 

 shower of falling stars was seen by Captain Berard, on the Spanish 

 coast, near Carthagena del Levante. {Annuaire, 1836, p. 297.) 



In the night between the 12th and 13th of November, 1833, occurred 

 the phenomenon so admirably described by Professor Olmsted, in 

 North America. 



In the night of the 13-1 4th of November. 1834, a similar fall of shoov 



