40 



SHOOTING? STARS AND AEROLITES. 



been used as a principal element in combating 

 that view of the origin of aerolites, in which 

 they were presumed to be projected from still 

 active volcanoes in the moon. The supposi- 

 tion of any volcanic power, of greater or less 

 energy, inherent in a small planetary body sur- 

 rounded by no atmosphere, is, indeed, in the 

 nature of things, and numerically considered, 

 extremely arbitrary. It is not difficult, indeed, 

 to conceive the reaction of the interior of a 

 planet against its crust, as ten or even a hun- 

 dred times greater than that which we now ob- 

 serve in connection with the volcanoes of the 

 earth. The direction of the masses, too, 

 which could be projected from a satellite mo- 

 ving from west to east, might appear retro- 

 grade, in consequence of the earth, in its orbit, 

 arriving later at the point of its path where the 

 masses fall. But, then, if the entire circle of 

 relations, which I felt myself compelled to spe- 

 cify, even in this general picture of nature, to 

 escape the suspicion of making unfounded as- 

 sertions, be surveyed, it will be found that 

 the hypothesis of a lunar origin of meteoric 

 stones(^') is dependent on a majority of condi- 

 tions, the accidental association of which could 

 alone give to the barely possible, the form and 

 substance of reality. The admission of the 

 original existence of small planetary masses 

 circulating in space, is simpler, and seems more 

 in harmony with what we know or infer with 

 reference to the formation of the solar system. 



It is highly probable that a great proportion 

 of these cosmic bodies pass undestroyed in the 

 vicinity of our atmosphere, and only suffer a 

 certain deflection in the excentricity of their 

 orbits by the attraction of the earth. We may 

 conceive that the same bodies only become vis- 

 ible to us again after the lapse of several years, 

 and when they have made many revolutions 

 round their orbit. The ascent of some fire- 

 balls and shooting stars (which Chladni en- 

 deavoured to explain, not very happily, by a 

 reflection produced by a body of greatly con- 

 densed air) appears, at first sight, to be a con- 

 sequence of a mysterious projectile force throw- 

 ing off the meteors from the earth ; but Bessel 

 has shown on theoretical grounds, and indeed 

 proved, by means of Feldt's very accurate cal- 

 culations, that in the absence of perfect agree- 

 ment in point of time, of the disappearances re- 

 corded, there is not one amongst the whole of 

 the observations published which impresses the 

 assumption of an ascent, with a character of 

 probability, none which does not allow us to re- 

 gard it as an effect of observation(*°). Wheth- 

 er the explosion of shooting stars, and of the 

 smoking and flaming fire-balls which do not al- 

 ways move in straight lines, may force the me- 

 teors upwards in the manner of rockets, or oth- 

 er\yise influence the direction of their path, in 

 certain cases, as Olbers supposes, must remain 

 matter for further observation. 



Shooting stars fall either singly and rarely, 

 and at all seasons indifferently, or in crowds 

 of many thousands (Arabian writers compare 

 them to swarms of locusts), in which case they 

 are periodical, and move in streams generally 

 parallel in direction. Amongst the periodic 

 showers, the most remarkable are those that 

 occur from the 12th to the 14th of November, 

 and on the 10th of August ; the " fiery tears" 



which then descend, are noticed in an ancient 

 English church-calendar, and are traditionally 

 indicated as a recurring meteorological inci- 

 dent(*^). Independently of this, however, pre- 

 cisely in the night from the 12th to the 13th of 

 November, 1823, according to Kloden, there 

 was seen at Potsdam, and in 1832, over the 

 whole of Europe from Portsmouth to Orenburg 

 on the river Ural, and even in the southern 

 hemisphere, in the Isle of France, a great mix- 

 ture of shooting stars and fire-balls of the most 

 different magnitudes ; but it appears to have 

 been more especially the enormous fall of 

 shooting stars, which Olmsted and Palmer ob- 

 served in North America between the 12th and 

 13th of November, 1833, when they appeared 

 in one place as thick as flakes of snow, and 

 240,000 at least were calculated to have fallen 

 in the course of nine hours, that led to the idea 

 of the periodic nature of the phenomenon, of 

 great flights of shooting stars being connected 

 with particular days. Palmer of New Haven 

 recollected the fall of meteors in 1799, which 

 EUicot and I first described(*''), and from which, 

 by the juxtaposition of observations which I 

 had given, it was discovered that the phenom- 

 enon had occurred simultaneously over the 

 New Continent from the equator to New-Hern- 

 hut in Greenland (N. Lat. 64° 14'), betwixt 46'^ 

 and 82° of Longitude. The identity in point 

 of time was perceived with amazement. The 

 stream, which was seen over the whole vault 

 of heaven between the 12th and 13th of No- 

 vember, 1833, from Jamaica to Boston (N. L. 

 40° 21'), recurred in 1834, in the night between 

 the 13th and 14th of November, in the United 

 States of North America, but with something 

 less of intensity. In Europe, its periodicity 

 since this epoch has been confirmed with great 

 regularity. 



A second, even as regularly recurring show- 

 er of shooting stars as the November phenom- 

 enon, is the one of the month of August — the 

 feast of St. Lawrence phenomenon — between 

 the 9th and the 14th of the month. Muschen- 

 broeck(") had already called attention in the 

 middle of the preceding century to.the frequen- 

 cy of meteors in the month of August ; but 

 their periodic and certain return about the time 

 of the feast of St. Lawrence was first pointed 

 out by Quetelet, Olbers, and Benzenberg. In 

 the course of time other periodically recurring 

 showers of shooting stars(**) will very certain- 

 ly h^ discovered — perhaps from the 22d to the 

 25th of April ; from the 6th to the 12th of De- 

 cember, and, in consequence of the actual fall 

 of aerolites described by Capocci, from the 27th 

 to the 29th of November, or about the 17th of 

 July. 



However independent all the phenomena of 

 falling stars yet witnessed may have been of 

 polar elevation, temperature of the air, and oth- 

 er climatic relations, there is still one, although 

 perhaps only accidental, accompanying phenom- 

 enon which must not be passed by unnoticed. 

 The Northern Lights showed themselves of 

 great intensity during the most brilliant of all 

 these natural incidents, that, namely, which 

 Olmsted has described (Nov. 12-13, 1833). 

 The same thing was also observed in Bremen 

 in 1838, where, however, the periodic fall of 

 meteors was less remarkable than at Rich- 



