382 On the Meteors of 13th November. 
Though there was no moon, when we first beheld them, their bril- 
liancy was so great, that we could, at times, read common sized prift, 
aon much difficulty, and the light which they afforded was much 
whiter than that of the moon, in the clearest and coldest night, when 
-the ground is covered with snow. ‘The air itself, the face of the 
earth, as far as we could behold it—all the surrounding objects, and 
the very countenances of men, wore the aspect, and hue of death, 
occasioned by the continued, pallid glare, of these countless meteors, 
which in all their grandeur, flamed “Jawless through the sky.” 
There was a grand, peculiar, and indescribable, gloom on all pe 
—an awe inspiring sublimity on all above, while 
——_——“* the sanguine flood 
Rolled a broad slaughter o’er the plains of Heaven 
And N ature ’sself did seem to totter on the brink of time!” 
Forcibly 1 were we reminded of that remarkable passage in Reve- 
lations, which speaks of the great red dragon, as drawing the third 
of the stars of heaven, and casting them to the earth; and if it 
be a figurative expression, that figure appeared to be fully painted on 
the broad canopy of the sky,—spread over with sheets of light, an 
thick with streams of rolling fire. There was scarcely a space in the 
firmament which was not filled at every instant with these falling stars, 
nor on it, could you in general perceive any particular difference, in 
appearance; still at times they would shower down in groups—calling 
to mind the “ fig tree, casting her untimely figs when shaken by a 
mighty wind,” and their phosphorescent burning flashed around you 
like the mighty flash of lightning on the enphoet of water, though 
more light and pallid. 
The long luminous — —— they left behind, would last for 
several seconds; and a when the nucleu sled entirely disap- 
pies those traces or coin varying from ten toa hundred yards 
would linger on the sky and continue to shine in all their 
beilidecy for two or three minutes, and then expire in a twinkling of 
an eye. 
Their size was about the same as that of the morning star,—they 
moved something higher, and their velocity was much faster than that 
of the common meteors, and from the place of their starting to where 
they seemed to expire, it was, we would suppose, from ten to forty 
degrees. 
You would now and then see some solitary ones, resembling balls 
of livid fire, like burning rockets shooting towards the earth, and emit- 
ting numerous sparks, as they boldly rushed into the more dense and 
vaporous atmosphere—acquiring as they fell, a more baleful and mur- 
derous aspect, and like incendiary spies, portending ruin and de- 
struction. 
