360 On Meteoric Showers in August. 
nificence to which both the November and the April showers have 
occasionally attained. 
On the number of Meteoric Showers in a year. 
Three during the year may be considered as well established, viz. 
those of November, August and April. Of the latter, however, our 
knowledge is lamentably defective. It is certain that an unusual 
display of shooting stars was witnessed in this country about the last 
of April, 1803, and that very extensive meteoric showers occurred 
in April, A. D. 1095, and 1122. No proper efforts to discover the 
April shower have to my knowledge yet been made. A careful 
look out should be, and probably hereafter will be kept up, for ten 
days before and after the 30th of that month. 
Having looked through many hundred volumes in search of me- 
teoric showers, it seems to me rather improbable that any fourth 
periodical time will be found. There are however several uncer- 
tain statements which afford some slight reasons for supposing, that 
there may be a meteoric shower about the middle of February, and 
also about the middle of June. As the phenomenon is one which in 
most cases would escape ordinary observation, we must look for our 
evidence chiefly to the future. If the showers of A. D. 902 and 
1202, now referred to October, (new style,) should be found cor- 
rectly stated, then we shall be obliged to admit that in these two 
years a meteoric shower occurred in October; and we ought to lose 
no opportunity for ascertaining whether their successors can now be 
discovered. 
On the nature, motions, and numbers of Shooting Stars. 
Shooting stars are without doubt cosmical or celestial bodies, and 
not of atmospheric or terrestrial origin. No plausible reasons for 
the common supposition that they are particles of electricity, or im 
some way the result of electrical action, have, to my knowledge, ever 
been advanced. 
If we consider them as a class of bodies wholly distinct from me- 
teorites, then we have no knowledge of their constituent elements. 
The different colors and appearances which they present, clearly 
indicate however that they differ in constitution. The majority are 
white, many are yellowish-white, some are red, and a few are green. 
They probably also differ in density ;—some appear to us like 
mere streaks of phosphoric vapor; others seem to be solid balls of 
