378 On the Meteors of 13th November. 
would frequently appear for a moment, near the point from whence 
they seemed to emanate ;. which was unquestionably occasioned by a 
cainoidence of the course of the meteor with the line of observation. 
Respecting the origin of these meteors, let him speculate who 
iicaess ; for until the boundaries of human knowledge. shall be en- 
larged, vague and inadequate hypotheses, are probably all that can be 
advanced.. When man shall have explored the secrets of the bound- 
less, and seemingly empty regions of space, which encompass the 
earth, then may he assign causes for phenomena, that now seem 
veiled j in mystery. In speculating on the nature and origin of shoot- 
ing stars, they must not be confounded with those ponderous fire balls, 
which, at intervals of years perhaps, sweep across the heavens, and 
light up the repose of night, with the effulgence of day; spreading 
consternation and wonder wherever they are seen, and ultimately 
falling and burying themselves in the earth. Those bodies, are prob- 
ably the wrecks of small spheres, which, from the earliest ages of 
nature, have pursued a trackless orb arourid the earth, moving beyond 
the subtile confines of the atmosphere; and set on fire perbaps in 
their fall, by the dense strata of air they een reacting with the 
spontaneously inflammable materials of which they in part consist. 
The solid nuclet of these teteorolites, have frequently been ex- 
amined by the chemist; but the same cannot be said of falling stars. 
They do not seem to be of a nature so substantial: for it would ap- 
pear, that they seldom or never reach terra firma, beable: 3 them- 
ves in vapor or mist, while yet high in the atmosphere 
It is quite probable, in my opinion, that this display of ‘meteors has 
been observed in different places, over a widely extended region. 
This, however, remains to be determined. > ge eS 5 Mag 
OL Phenomena as observed at Salisbury, N. Carolina, Lat. 35° 
39’ N., Lon. 80° 25’ W., by Asset Surrn, M. D., eratnani- 
cated to Prof. Olmsted. ) 
“Travelling on a professional visit, £3 was in the open ite withiout 
any intermission from night fall till the day dawned. In the early part 
of the night, the atmosphere was uncommonly bright and even glit- 
tering. A few meteors of inferior brightness, in remote regions of 
the atmosphere, were seen by me previously to midnight; some as 
early, I feel pretty confident, as 10 o’clock. After midnight, they 
rapidly increased in number and brilliancy till 4 o’clock. The dis- 
lay was then in the highest degree magnificent and imposing, and 
continued without diminution till the dawn. of day, every region of the 
atmosphere all the while presenting the sublime spectacle of a shower 
of The meteors varied greatly in the degree of splendor, some 
being an obliquely luminous line, while others resembled a rushing 
ball of liquid fire, with a splendid train or tail, bathing the surround- 
ing objects in a flood of most gorgeous but mellow light.” 
