358 On Meteoric Showers in August. 
in any wise attentive to them, = engaged in conversation. Their cotitsé of 
8 was guia e N.N. E. to 5. S. W., and of various degrees of brilliancy,— 
some of ery large and aad va ‘No watch was kept for them, and no par- 
tient dvtentioh paid to them, and we soon retired into the anes of the house. 
The air was uncommonly deters and the aati gait bright.” 
(9.) The display of shooting stars described in the following ex- 
tract, must have been one of uncommon numbers, and although the 
time does not correspond with the other dates within a week, yet 
the case deserves to be copied in this connection. If the times of 
the occurrence of the meteoric showers have gradually changed 
within six hundred years, it is highly important that we should 
know it. The quotation is from Matthei Paris Historia Major, 
etc. Ed. W. Wats, S. T. D. fol. Lond. 1640. p. 602. 
. 1243. “Et eodem anno, videlicet septimo Calend. Augusti, fuit nox se- 
renissima, , aérque purissimus, ita quod Lactea, sicut solet placidissima nocte hye- 
de, si vere stella fuissent, (quod nullius sapientis est sentire) nec una in ceelo 
remansisset. Considerent Astrologi, quid hujusmodi po Creat, significet: sed 
omnibus intuentibus, videbatur nimis stupendum et prodigiosu 
This date is the 26th of July of the Julian oa and conse- 
quently about the 2d of August of our present calendar.* 
(10.) Observations on shooting stars have of late engaged the 
eee of persons in various parts of Europe. The September 
o. (1837) of the Lond. and Edin. Philos. Magazine, which has 
ahs arrived, contains three articles on this subject ;—one by M. 
Wartmann, of Geneva, and two by M. Quetelet, of Brussels. The 
following quotations from the latter show that the author suspects a 
meteoric shower in August. 
“M. Sauveur stated that being on the road from Brussels to sro in the night 
of the 8th of last August (1836) he observed a considerable number of shooting 
stars, of which several were remarkable for their size and brilliancy. M. Que- 
telet suggests that this epoch presents a singular agreement wits that of the 10th 
* There are on record several other well-marked instances of ancient star- 
showers, some of which it may be difficult to reconcile with the periodic times 0: 
the present day. If their mage are truly given, these displays have happened, at 
various times between A. D. 764 and 1243, in the months of March, April, Octo- 
ber and December. There seems however good reason to suppose that the me- 
teoric showers of antiquity did in fact occur at times of year somewhat removed 
: esent periods. A statement of these instances, with an inquiry into 
‘change of period, may be expected in the next volume of this Journal. 
