AEROLITES. 125 



A comparison of the facts I had adduced, showed that tho 

 phenomenon had been simultanoonsly seen in the New Conti- 

 nent, from the equator to New Ilerrnhut in Greenland (G4^ 

 14' north latitude), and between 4G^ and 82*^ longitude. 

 The identity of the epochs was recognized with astonishment. 

 The stream, which had been seen from Jamaica to Boston 

 (40'^ 21' north latitude) to traverse the whole vault of heaven 

 on the 12th and 13th of Novem.bcr, 1833, was again observed 

 in the United States in 1834, en the night between the 13th 

 and 14th of November, although on this latter occasion it 

 showed itself with somewhat less intensity. In Europe the 

 periodicity of the phenomenon has since been manifested with 

 great regularity. 



Another and a like regularly recurring phenomenon is that 

 noticed in the month of August, the meteoric stream of St. 

 Lawrence, appearing between the 9th and 14th of August. 

 Muschenbroek,* as early as in the middle of the last century, 

 drew attention to the frequency of meteors in the month of 

 August ; but their certain periodic return about the time of 

 St. Lawrence's day was first shown by Quetelet, Olbers, and 

 Benzenberg. We shall, no doubt, in time, discover other pe- 

 riodically appearing streams,! probably about the 22d to the 



ecliptic at about the point which our Earth annually occupies between 

 the 11th and 13th of November. It is a new planetary world begin- 

 ning to be revealed to us." (Annuaire, 1836, p. 29G.) 



* Compare Muschenbroek, Iiitrod. ad Phil. Nat., 1762, t. ii., p. 1061 : 

 Howard, On the Climate of London, vol. ii., p. 23, observations of the 

 year 1806 ; seven years, therefore, after the earliest observations of 

 Brandes (Benzenberg, uber Slernschnuppen, s. 240-244); the August 

 observations of Thomas Forster, in Quetelet, op. cit., p. 438-453 ; those 

 of Adolph Erman, Boguslawski, and Kreil, in Schum., Jahrb., 1838, s. 

 317-330. Regarding the point of origin in Perseus, on the 10th of Au- 

 gust, 1839, see the accurate measurements of Bessel and Erman (Schum., 

 Astr. Nachr., No. 385 und 428j); but on the 10th of August, 1837, the 

 path does not appear to have been retrograde ; see Arago, in Compta 

 Rendus, 1837, t. ii., p. 183. 



t Ou the 25th of April, 1095, " innumerable eyes in France saw stars 

 falling from heaven as thickly as hail" {ut grando, nisi lucerent, pro den- 

 sitate putaretur ; Baldr., p. 88), and this occurrence was regarded by 

 the Council of Clermont as indicative of the great movement in Chris- 

 tendom. (Wilken, Qesch. der Kreuzzuge, bd. i., s. 75.) On the 25th 

 of April, 1800, a great fall of stars was observed in Virginia and Mas 

 sachusetts ; it was " a fire of rockets that lasted two hours." Arago 

 was the first to call attention to this '' trainee d'asteroVdes," as a recur- 

 ring phenomenon. (Anmiaire, 1836, p. 297.) The falls of aerolites in 

 the beginning of the month of December are also deserving of notice. 

 In reference to their periodic recurrence as a meteoric stream, we may 

 mention the early observation of Brandes on the night of iho 6th and 

 ?'th of December, 1798 (when he counted 2000 falling star?), and vcr^ 



