Eas. es Miscellanies. 
.  biers, not including numbers which must have been overlookéle 
... the observers were not sufficiently numerous. Sometimes the ne 
3 % _ Stars: succeeded each other so rapidly that nothing but the time could | 
re be noted. The courses therefore of only 977 were marked upon the 
__ star-maps; with all their circumstances. The following result is as __ 
near the truth as” possible, Five meteors appeared as bright as Venus; 
_ 14as Jupiter; 238 as stars of the first magnitude ; 354 of the second, 
=< a and 257 of the third magnitude: 101 were reckoned smaller still, and : 
the magnitudes of eight were lost in the hurry. Two hundred and 
- _ seventy three left luminous trains. * * Three observers watched ‘ 
on the night of the 11th, and saw 323 shooting stars, while the sky 
: "was partly covered. On the — xe the 12th, one observer counted 
ia 103 meteors, between 10 P. M. Ih. 45m. A. M. of the 13th. 
* “Therefore, the annual oe ae neta “of an uncommon fall of 
-» stars towards the 10th of August, is once more confirmed, as well as 
oe the passage of this host of meteors near the earth, lasts several 
s * oe” 
. 
-- ‘It thus appears that on the night of August 10th, 1839, meteors 
- were seen as abundantly at Breslau as at. New: Haven. (This Jour. 
Vol. xxxvut, p. 325.) The place of apparent radiation will doubtless 
be well determined from the ample materials obtained by. the Brus 
sian observers. 
No returns from the southern hemisphere have yet ae fe 
KE. 
BRECK 
6. British Antarctic Expedition —The British Aitarctic Explo 
“ring Expedition, under command of Capt, J. C. Ross, sailed from Eng- 
land in September, 1839. It consists of the Terror, of 340 tons, and 
the Erebus, of 370 tons, six guns each. They were built expressly 
for this purpose, and are finished and furnished in the most complete 
~. style at the expense of the Admiralty, under the superintendence of a 
committee of the Royal Society. The ships are in three compart 
ments below, for greater safety. They are ‘supplied with eight boats, 
two sets of all needed instruments, double decks, spare rudders, &¢+ 
_ together with abundance of pemmican, and fresh provisions for three 
years. The expedition is to establish magnetic observatories 8 pec 
_ Helena, the Cape of Good Hope, and Yan Dicmaws Landi 
_ to make for the Antarctic pole as far as possible. ‘The highest? Ta 
ee bgt meets ie S., by Capt. Weddell in 1823. 
— — oe 
. any B. Blectro-Magnet—Messrs. Eprtors,—As the subject 
= iow occupying much of the attention of the 
d many experinjente mats to procure a motive 
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