Shooting Stars of December 7, 1838. 363 
During the above observations the sky was sufficiently clear. 
Where m. is annexed to the number seen, allowance must be 
made for the presence of the moon 53 or 64$*days past the full. 
This table shows, that a season of meteoric abundance extended 
from the 6th to the 11th (at least ,) and that'it came to its max- 
imum early on the evening of the. 7th. During the evenings of 
_ the 6th and 7th, shooting: stars were so frequent and brilliant, 
that they attracted the attention of persons abroad in different 
_ parts of the city. Being then ignorant as to the period of the 
night at which the display of Dec. 6, 1798, occurred, and having 
fallen in rather too hastily with the common conclusion, that me- 
teors are always most abundant between midnight and morning, 
my arrangements were made chiefly for a morning watch.- The 
appearances were consequently not so ‘well observed as they 
would have been, but for a reliance on this-premature general- 
ization.. On the evening of the 6th, meteors were not much less 
numerous than on the evening of the 7th, and they did not in- 
crease in number after midnight.* Professor Olmsted informs 
me that onthe evening of the 7th, from 64 to 8 p.m, he, with 
two of his sons, (F. A. Olmsted, and D. Olmsted, Jr.,) without 
very close attention, and in much less than the whole heavens, 
counted meteors at the rate of at least 100 an hour. He re- 
marked that at 8 they were becoming less frequent. From 8 to 
9, Mr. Haile and myself observed ninety three, and we probably 
saw not more than half the whole visible number ; ; for, although 
a single observer can. see large meteors throughout half the hemi- 
sphere, yet he can not detect all the smaller ones, (which are 
commonly the majority,) throughout more than.an eighth part of 
the hemisphere. ‘The meteors slightly diminished in number, as. 
the evening advanced; but much to our regret, we were pre- 
vented, after about 11 p. m., by an overclouded sky, from deter- 
_ mining the rate of dimindtion, or the general progress of the phe- 
nomenon. On the morning of the 8th, Mr. Haile watched from 
Ath. to 5th. (about a sixth of the hemisphere, in the N. W. being 
nearly clear,) and saw five meteors. 
‘The meteors of the 6th and 7th were not unlike those of ordi- 
hary times :—many of them were — and —_— fire-balls, 
<a 
* The Saincitetice in this respect between the meteors of Dec. 6, 1798, and 
those of of Dec. 6 and 7, 1838, is obvious. 
a 
