20 Shooting Stars. 
Arr. [f.—Ezamination of a substance called Shooting Star, 
which was found in a wet meadow ; by Counsellor Dr. 
Branoves, of Salzuflen. 
(Translated from the German, for the American Journal of Science and Arts.)* 
My friend the Counsellor, Dr. Buchner, some time since 
took a part in the discussion, in Kastuer’s Archives, upon 
the substance called sternschruppen, (shooting star,) which 
Counsellor Kastner has distinguished by the name of sterne- 
gailerte, (star jelly.) A-specimen of this substance, having 
a ge elatinous” —- was found in a wet meadow, which 
unse Schultes considered as a tremella nostoc. 
Buchner was of a different opinion, because he could dis- 
cover in the substance no trace of organic texture, when he 
came to examine it himself. As respects the question, — 
er it were of a celestial or of a terrestrial origin, he main- 
tains, that this at mass could not be either a oes or 
an animal, as @ whole, but rather the product of a re or 
an 2 9 
as = comet epeeeiees Se least, this mucilaginous mass, 
like the oyster, may p very nutritious properties. | 
readily agree with my jeuvnars friend, that the former suppo- 
sition is probable, viz.: that these masses are animal excre- 
tions, or are from gelatinous meteors ; but the idea seems to 
be improbable, that they are like the manna of the Israelites, 
from their presenting such diversities, both in the nature of 
their bodies, and in their localities. From-the absence of or- 
. — structure, in the mass examined and descri ' 
uchner ;—further, from the account by R. Grav ves, of a fire- 
ball, (fuer-meteor) which fell in Massachusetts in North 
Ameriea, on a place the next morning a gelatinous 
"seta was 5 found ;—from my own abedremtiqns he 
“> Extrcted from the Jahrbuc h der Chemie und d Physik fur 
eg S.C. Schweiger Seidel 
ie as OM ie ee 
year observed near the | place where the meteor mentioned 
Col. Graves was supposed to have fillen ; ; we cannot say that the two facts 
posit eas but it appears proper that the coincidence should oe men- 
