376 THE 1'ARMER AT HOME. 



able exhibition of shooting st5.r3, at Cumana, in South America, arid 

 over most of the West India Islands. The following account of it is 

 from the pen of a gentleman who witnessed it. He says : "I was 

 called up about three o'clock in the morning,, to see the shooting of 

 stars, as it is called. The phenomenon was grand and awful. The 

 whole heavens appeared as if illuminated with sky rockets, which 

 disappeared only by the light of the sun after daybreak. These me- 

 teors appeared as numerous as the stars, flying in all possible direc- 

 tions, except from the earth, towards which they all inclined more or 

 less, and some of them descended perpendicularly over the vessel we 

 were in, so that I was in constant expectation of their falling on us. 



About thirty years previous to this time, a similar phenomenon 

 was observed on the table-land of the Andes. At Quito, there was 

 seen in one part of the sky, above the volcano of Gayarnba. so great 

 a number of falling stars, that the mountain was thought to be in 

 flames. This extraordinary light lasted more than an hour. Those 

 meteors which are heard to burst, the explosion being followed, as is 

 sometimes the case, by the fall of stones, are called aerolites. These 

 stones often descend with such force as to bury themselves several feet 

 in the earth. Many attempts have been made to account for the 

 formation and ignition of these grand objects ; but the subject still 

 remains enveloped in mystery. 



It has been said that the stones, thus incontestibly proved by dif- 

 ferent authorities, and from various places, to have fallen after the 

 explosion of meteors, are heated and luminous when they reach the 

 earth, and they have been seen in Europe, Asia, and America. The 

 stones are of different sizes, arid from a few ounces in weight to seve- 

 ral tons. They are generally of a circular form, and covered with a 

 rough black crust. Meteoric stones have been subjected to chemical 

 analysis, and are found to be entirely different from all known stones 

 belonging to the earth. The most remarkable of these meteors, so 

 recently seen, were those of 1783 and 1805. The former was very 

 luminous, and its diameter was estimated to be a thousand yards. 

 The latter passed with such astonishing rapidity, that amazement had 

 not subsided ere it vanished ; consequently, but very little dependence 

 can be placed on what has been said concerning its bulk and shape. 

 The light which it emitted was a pale blue, and almost as instantaneous 

 as a flash of lightning, and the rushing of the enormous body produced 

 a sound like very distant thunder. 



SHORT-HORNED CATTLE. The Durham cattle are usually 

 called short horns. From the earliest periods to which we have any 

 accounts of our breeds of cattle, says Mr. Martin, the counties of Dur- 

 ham and York have been celebrated for these cattle, particularly as 

 extraordinary milkers. The Durham short horns are of all colors, 

 from a pure creamy white to a deep red ; but generally these colors 

 are intermixed in patches of every imaginable shape and of all sizes, 



