348 On the Meteors of 13th November. 1833. " 



ico, — and when we reflect, that this stationary condition in the heav- 

 ens could not be an instantaneous effect of any cause, but must have 

 been either pre-existent to the very earliest observations in our pos- 

 session, or an ultimate state of motions gradually becoming quies- 

 cent — the conclusion seems inevitable, that our planet owed the brill- 

 iant decorations of its atmosphere on the morning of Nov. 13th to the 

 presence of foreign and celestial visitants. 



t Second. — The flight of the meteors was not tangential, as that of 

 secondary bodies would have been; but was directed to the centre, 

 in latitude 34° probably truly so : they could not therefore be bodies 

 which, having a revolution around the earth as a primary, were di- 

 verted by some accidental force from their established orbit, and made 

 to wander into the atmosphere. *No analogy connects these bodies 

 with those occasional solid meteors which traverse the upper regions 

 of the air and explode, throwing down masses to the surface : ex- 

 plosive or fitful impulse is an idea not in place, when we reason upon 



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the combined actions of a whole system of bodies, vastly extended, 

 yet all moving with entire harmony and concert. When this harmo- 

 ny and wide extent of action and the uniform direction of the mo- 

 tions to the center and not around it are well considered, they seem 

 to cut off every idea of a secondary dependence upon our planet, 

 on the part of the meteors — as other considerations have already cut 

 off all idea of a direct dependence. 



Third. — It only remains then that the existence of the meteors 

 was independent of every terrestrial cause or agency. But, as they 

 were certainly within the planetary spaces and under the dominion 

 of solar gravitation, the supposition implies that they were in rapid 

 motion either towards the sun or around it. That they were not in 

 rapid motion towards the sun is evident from the direction of their 

 motion in the atmosphere, which was nearly — and probably in lat. 45° 

 exactly — the same as if the earth in its annual motion had encounter- 

 ed these bodies in a state of absolute rest; for the radiant, there, 

 must have lain near the ecliptic, and in about the same longitude as 

 the point towards which the earth was moving. Their line of motion 

 was therefore co-incident with the line of the earth's motion ; so far 

 at least as to imply, that the meteors had an orbit of revolution around 

 the sun. 



Fourth 



teoric velocity must have been in excess of the earth's velocity ; and 



the radiant could not have lain in the spaces preceding the earth, but 



