324 On the Meteors oflStk November, 1833. 



which circular space was more luminous than the heavens generally and 

 was as discernible and well defined as a halo round the moon: — with- 

 in this space, and towards its edges especially, there was perceptible, 

 upon close scrutiny, " an uneasy sensation," caused by multitudes of 

 cloudy spots or circles succeeding one another and, towards the 

 boundaries of the space, drawing out and departing, like a viscid sub- 

 stance, with reluctant motion. This effect which Mr. Palmer de- 

 scribes is readily explicable on the common principles which regu- 

 lated the other phenomena, except the multitude of the spots or cir- 

 cles, which may have been the exaggerated effect upon vision of small 

 meteors, really numerous, but which in the body of the heavens at 

 large, could not be seen, being too minute to affect the retina with 

 a distinct figure unless when their line of motion was nearly coinci- 

 dent with the line of sight. Mr. Palmer is sure that the radiant did 

 not change its altitude or azimuth all night ; but he made no observa- 

 tions with an express view to the determination of that question. 

 When Mr. Palmer attempted to divide the meridian passing through 

 the radiant into spaces, and to estimate the comparative lengths &lc 

 of the meteors' flights within those spaces (see vol. xxv. p. 383.) 

 he observed a general uniformity, as to length of flight and angu- 

 lar velocities, among those meteors which showed themselves in a giv- 

 en space or zone, whether it were the zone most distant from the ra- 

 diant or nearest to it. Actual measurement made towards morn- 

 ing in the quarter from N. E. to N. W., in the case of ten or twelve 

 of the most distinct and longest in the distant zones gave very 

 uniformly 40° of length and four seconds of time. It will appear 

 hereafter, that these were probably the very extremes both of angu- 

 lar distance and of duration. 



If the writer's recollection is not amiss there was, on the morning 

 of the 13th, between 5 and 6 o'clock, a twilight issuing from the 

 whole south eastern and southern quarter; while the western and nor- 

 thern quarter was dark as usual. The meteors, every where in ac- 

 tion, presented every gradation of apparent magnitude from mere 

 points to the disc of Venus and Jupiter; and several of them, after the 

 dawn was so far advanced that the meteors were shorn of their dazzling 

 brilliance, were seen to have a disc of such magnitude that its per- 

 fect circular figure was evident to sense. In addition to these, which 

 made up the multitude of the moving fires (whose number was 

 certainly within the limits of estimate, though, on the whole, much 

 greater, it is probable, than the number assigned by any one who has 



attempted an estimate) we have accounts from every district of the 



