\ 
358 Meteoric Shower of April 20, 1803. 
served over the mountains in the west; various shooting stars 
appeared ; the firmament was completely free of clouds, &c.”— 
Edinb. Ann. Reg. for 1809. 8vo, vol. 2, pt. 2, p. 509. 
(4.) In an anonymous table of the dates at which unusual 
numbers of meteors have been seen, contained in the London 
Monthly Chronicle, (vol. i, No. 9, Nov. 1838,) the sixth of De- 
cember, 1826, is given. What authority there is for it, [ do not 
know. The table seems to be derived chiefly from a similar one 
published by M. Quetelet, with additions from various papers 
which have appeared in this Journal. 
New Haven, Conn., May 15, 1839, 
Arr. XI.— On the Meteoric Shower of April 20, 1803, with an 
account of observations made on and about the 20th April, 
1839; by Epwarp C. Herrick, Rec. Sec. Conn. Acad. 
Ir is generally known that in April, 1803, a remarkable shower 
of shooting stars was witnessed throughout a large part of the 
United States. In order that an account of this interesting event 
may be placed on permanent record, I have collected for this Jour- 
nal the following statements concerning it. 
As hypotheses which I do not credit, are often interwoven with 
the testimony cited, I take occasion here to express my entire dis- 
sent from the suppositions that shooting stars, whether single or 
in showers, are connected, either as cause or effect, with earth- 
quakes, pestilence, electrical discharges, winds, seasons of heat or 
cold, or any particular sort of weather; or that the movements of 
these meteors have any correspondence with the direction of the 
wind, or with lines of magnetic dip or declination. That they 
are connected with the causes of the Aurora Borealis, is quite 
doubtful, yet it is well worthy of notice, that very brilliant dis- 
ig of the latter have often occurred about the 13th of Novem 
a 
I. Meteoric Shower of April 20, 1803. 
1. General account.— The newspapers from North Carolina, 
Virginia, and New Hampshire, contain accounts of a remarkable 
exhibition of meteors, or of shooting stars, seen at Raleigh, [N. C.| 
Richmond, [Va,] and Portsmouth, [N. H.] towards the end of 
