106 COSMOS. 



atmosphere from without. According to Encke's computa- 

 tion* of the whole number of the observations made in the 

 United States of North America, between 35 and 42 lat., it 

 would appear that all these meteors came from the same 

 point of space in the direction in which the earth was moving 

 at the time. On the recurrence of falls of shooting stars in 

 North America, in the month of November of the years 1834 

 and 1837, and in the analogous falls observed at Bremen, in 

 1838, a like general parallelism of the orbits, and the same 

 direction of the meteors from the constellation Leo, were 

 again noticed. It has been supposed that a greater paral- 

 lelism was observable in the direction of periodic falls of 



* Encke, in Poggend. Annalen, bd. xxxiii. (1834), s. 213. Arago, 

 in the Annuaire for 1836, p. 291. Two letters which I wrote to 

 Benzenberg, May 19 and October 22, 1837, on the conjectural pre- 

 cession of the nodes in the orbit of periodical falls of shooting stars. 

 (Benzenberg's Sternsdi., s. 207 und 209.) Olbers subsequently adopted 

 this opinion of the gradual retardation of the November phenomenon. 

 (Astron. Nadir., 1838, No. 372, 8. 180.) If I may venture to combine 

 two of the falls of shooting stars mentioned by the Arabian writers with- 

 the epochs found by Boguslawski for the fourteenth century, I obtain 

 the following more or less accordant elements of the movements of the 

 nodes : 



In Oct., 902, on the night in which King Ibrahim ben Ahmed died, 

 there fell a heavy shower of shooting stars, " like a fiery rain ;" and this 

 year was, therefore, called the year of stars. (Conde, Hist, de la Domin. 

 \U los Ardb&i, p. 346.) 



On the 19th of Oct., 1202, the stars were in motion all night 

 " They fell like locusts." (Comptes Rendus, 1837, t. i. p. 294 ; and* 

 Frsehn, in the Bull de V Academic de St. Petersbourg, t. iii. p. 308.) 



On the 21st Oct., O.S., 1366, " die sequente postfestum XL millia 

 Virginum ab hora matutina usque ad koram primam visce sunt quasi 

 stellce de ccelo cadere continue, et in tanta multitudine, quod nemo 

 narrare sufficit." This remarkable notice, of which we shall speak more 

 fully in the subsequent part of this work, was found by the younger Von 

 Boguslawski, in Benesse (de Horowic) de Weitmil or Weithmlil, 

 Chronicon Ecdesice Pragensis, p. 389: This chronicle may also be 

 found in the second part of Scriptores rerum Boliemicarum, by Pelzel 

 and Dobrowsky, 1784. (Schum. Astr. Nachr., Dec. 1839.) 



On the night between the 9th and 10th of November, 1787, many 

 falling stars were observed at Manheim, Southern Germany, by Hemmer. 

 (Kamtz, Meteor., th. iii. s. 237.) 



After midnight, on the 12th of November, 1799, occurred the extra- 

 ordinary fall of stars at Cumana, which Bonpland and myself have 

 described, and which was observed over a. great part of the earth* 

 Relat. Hist., t. i. pp. 519-527.) 



