394 Miscellanies. 
meteoric showers which have, on two occasions, at least,* occurred 
near the last of April,—a time distant about half a year from 
November, and therefore sustaining a like relation to the opposite 
point of its orbit. In such a case, meteoric showers would occur 
in April and November, for the same reason*that the Transits of 
Mercury take place in May and November exclusively. The greater 
frequency of meteors in November than in April, naturally results from 
the greater proximity of the earth to the sun at the former than at the 
latter period; to which, perhaps, may be added, the effect of the ec~ 
centricity of the orbit of the meteoric body, the aphelion being on 
the side of November. In the present state of our knowledge on 
this subject, I regard it as a point open for inquiry, whether it will best 
accord with all the phenomena of shooting stars, to give to the mete- 
- oric body a period of nearly one year, or of half a year. 
{ have been somewhat disappointed, that astronomers should have 
paid so little attention to the remarkable changes which take place 
in the Zodiacal Licht, about the 13th of November, as has been re- 
peatedly mentioned in this Journal. It appears to me a fact deserv- 
ing their attention, that the Zodiacal Light, which for weeks before 
the 13th of November, appears in the morning sky, with a western 
elongation of from 60 to 90 degrees from the sun, (while up to that 
time not a glimpse of it can be caught in the evening sky,) shoul 
immediately afterwards appear after the evening ewilight 3 in the west, 
and rapidly rise through the constellations Capricornus and Aqua- 
rius, to an elongation at more than 90 degrees eastward of the sun, 
while it as rapidly withdraws itself from the morning sky, and within 
a few days vanishes entirely from the western side of the sun. For 
three years past I have observed these changes with much interest, 
and feel warranted in asserting, that they have been repeated with 
uniform regularity. The present year, the light was very feeble in 
the morning sky, an effect partly owing to the presence and peculiar 
splendor of the planet Venus; but as soon after the 13th of November 
as the absence of the moon would permit observations, the light ap- 
peared in the west immediately after twilight, crossing the Milky 
Way, and rising in a pyramid almost as bright as that, the triangular 
space between it and the Galaxy, embracing the Dolphin, appear- 
ing, by contrast, strikingly darker. - 
*In Virginia, and various other parts of the United States, in 1803, and in 
France in 1095. Making suitable allowances for the more rapid progress of the 
earth through the winter signs, and for the change of style, and the Meteoric 
shower of the 23th of April, 1995, occurred at very nearly the opposite point of 
the earth’s orbit. 
