114 



♦ ■^ 



NOTES TO PRECEDING SECTION. 



probable indeed that this amount has been greatly over-es- 

 timated. A very accurate ol)server and measurer of the 

 power of ^tna, Dr. Peters, has found the greatest velocity 

 of stones cast out from its crater to be but 1250 feet per 

 second. Observations on the Peak of Teneriffe in 1798 gave 

 3000 feet. If Laplace, at the end of his work (Expos, du 

 Syst. du Monde, 1824, p. 399), says very considerately, 

 " que selon toutes les vraisemblaiices elles viennent des pro- 

 fondeurs de I'espace celeste ;" we still find him in another 

 place, probably unacquainted with the amazing, wholly 

 planetary velocity of meteoric stones (Chap. vi. p. 233), re- 

 verting to the selenitic hypothesis with a kind of preference, 

 but always premising that the stones cast out from the 

 moon "deviennent des satellites de la terre, d6crivant au- 

 tour d'eile une orbite plus on moins allongtie, de sorte (ju'ils 

 n'atteignent I'atmosph^re de la terre qu'apres plusieurs et 

 mfime un tr^s-grand nombre de r6volutions." In the same 

 way as an Italian of Tortona conceived the fancy that aero- 

 lites came from the moon, Greek philosophers had a notion 

 that they came from the sun. Diogenes Laertius (ii. 9) ad- 

 verts to such an op-nion when treating of the origin of the 

 mass which fell at ^Egos Potamoi {vide Note 32 above) ; and 

 Pliny, who registers every thing, mentions the idea, and 

 ridicules it the more willingly, because with earlier writers 

 (Diog. Laert. ii. 3 and 5) he excuses Anaxagorus for having 

 predicated a fall of stones from the sun : " Celebrant Graeci 

 AnaxagoramClazomeniuin Olympiadisseptuagesimseoctavse 

 secundo anno priedixisse cielestium litterarum scientia, qui- 

 bus diebus saxum casurum esse e sole, idque factum inter- 

 diu in Thracise parte ad Aegos flumen. Quod si quis prie- 

 dictum credat, simul fateatur necesse est, majuris miraculi 

 divinitatem Anaxagorae fuisse.solvique rerum naturse intel- 

 lectum, et confundi omnia, si aut ipse Sol lapis esse autun- 

 quam lapidem in eo fuisse credatur ; decidere tamen crebro 

 non eritdubium." Anaxagoras is also said to have foretold 

 the fall of the stone of smaller dimensions, which was pre- 

 served in the Gymnasium of Abydos. Falls of aerolites 

 during sunshine, and when the disc of the moon was not 

 visible, probably gave rise to the idea of the sun as their 

 source. It was also one of the physical dogmas of Anaxa- 

 goras, and which, as in the case of the geologists of these 

 our own times, exposed him to the persecution of the theo- 

 logians, that the sun was " a molten fiery mass (fivSpns 

 Sidavpoi)." In the Phaeton of Euripides the sun, after the 

 same views of the Clazomensean, is called a "golden clod," 

 t. e., a fiery-coloured luminous mass of matter ; from which, 

 however, we are not to conclude that aerolites are "golden 

 sun-stones." Vide Note 31, above; as also Valckenaer, 

 Diatribe in Eurip. perd. dram. Reliquias, 1767, p. 30. Diog. 

 Laert. ii. 40. We seem, then, to find four hypotheses 

 among the Greek natural philosophers : a telluric origin of 

 falling stars from ascending vapours ; masses of stone raised 

 by tempests, in Aristotle (Meteorol. lib. i. cap. IV. 2 — 13, 

 and cap. vii. 9) ; an origin from the sun ; an origin from 

 celestial space, and as heavenly bodies that had long re- 

 mained invisible. On the last view of Diogenes of Apol- 

 lonia, which entirely agrees with our own, see the text (p. 

 43), and Note 58. It is remarkable that in Syria, as a learn- 

 ed Orientalist, my teacher of Persic, M. Andrea de Nericat, 

 assured me, according to an old popular belief they are still 

 solicitous about falls of stones from the sky in very clear 

 moonlight nights. The ancients, on the contrary, were on 

 the watch for the same event during eclipses of the moon 

 (Plin. xxxvii. 10, p. 164 ; Solinus, c. 37 ; Salm. Exerc. p. 

 531) ; and the passages collected by Ukert, in his Geogra- 

 phy of the Greeks and Romans (Th. ii. 1, S. 131, Note 14). 

 On the improbability that aerolites arise from gases holding 

 metallic matters dissolved, which, according to Fusinieri, 

 exist in the upper strata of our atmosphere, and which pre- 

 viously dispersed in infinite space had suddenly coalesced, 

 as well as on the penetration and miscibility of gases, see 

 my Relation histor. t. i. p. 525. 



■<0 (p. 40.)— Bessel in Schum. Astr. Nachr. 1839, Nr. 380 

 und 381, S. 222 und 346. At the close of the work there 

 is a comparison of the sun's place in longitude with the 

 epochs of the November phenomenon, since the first obser- 

 vations in Cumana, 1799. 



■ii (p. 40.)— Dr. Thomas Forster (the Pocket Encyclop. 

 of Natural Phenomena, 1827, p. 17) informs us that in 

 Christ Church College, Cambridge, there is preserved a 

 MS. entitled " Ephemerides rerum naturalium," which is 

 ascribed to a monk of the last century. In this MS. natural 

 phenomena are noted as having occurred on every day of 

 the year: the flowering of plants; the arrival of birds of 

 passage, «fec. The 10th of August is characterized by the 

 word meieorodfs. This indication and the tradition of the 

 fiery tears of St. Lawrence, led Dr. Forster to pay particu- 

 lar attention to the August phenomenon.— Quetelet, Cor- 

 resp. malhem., s6rie iii. timi. i. 1837, p. 433. 



42 (p. 40.)— Humboldt, Rel.hist. t. i., p. 519—527. Elli- 

 cot, in the Transactions of the American Society, 1804, vol. 

 vi. p. 29. Arago says of the November phenomemm, " Ainsi 

 ae confirme de plus en plus A nous Texistence d'une zone 

 compos^e de millions de petits corps dont les orbites rencoa- 



trent le plan de I'^cliptique vers le point que la terre va no 

 cuper tons les ans, du II an 13 Novenibre. CVst un nou- 

 veau monde plan6taire qui commence A se r6v6ler d nous." 

 — Annuaire, 1836. p. 206. 

 J^ (p. 40.)— Ftrfe Muschenbroek, Introd. ad Phil. Nat. 

 1762, t. ii. p. 1061. Howard, Climate of London, vol. ii. p. 

 23, Observations of the Year 1806, therefore, seven years 

 after the earliest observations of Prof. Brandes (Benzenberg 

 iiber Sternschnuppen, S. 240 — 244) ; August-Observations 

 of Thomas Forster, vide Quetelet, loc. cit, 438 — 453 ; of 

 Adolph Erman, Buguslawski und Kreil in Schum, Jahrb. 

 1838, S. 317—330. On the point in Perseus whence the 

 stream proceeded on the lOth of August, 1839, see the ac- 

 curate measurements of Bessel and Erman (Schum. Astr. 

 Nachr. Nos. 385 and 428) ; on the 10th of August, 1837, 

 however, the orbit did not appear to be retrograde ; see 

 Arago, in t^ompies rendus, 1837, torn. ii. p. 183. 



44 (p. 40.)— On the 25th of April, 1095, "innumerable 

 eyes in France saw the stars fall as thick as hail from 

 heaven" (ut grando, nisi lucerent, pro densitate putaretur ; 

 Baldr. p. 88) ; and this incident was regarded by the Coun- 

 cil of Clermont as premonitory of a great movement in 

 Christendom. (Vide Wilken, Gesch. der Kreuzziige, Bd. 

 i. S. 75.) On the 22d of April, 1800, a great fall of stars 

 was observed in Virginia and Massachusetts ; it was like a 

 display of rockets that lasted for two hours. Arago first 

 directed attention to this " trainee d'asl (Oroides*' as a recur- 

 ring phenomenon (Annuaire, 1836, p. 297). The falls of 

 aerolites in the beginning of December was also remarka- 

 ble ; their periodical recurrence is vouched for by the old 

 observations of Brandes in the night from the 6th to the 7th 

 of December, 1798, when he counted nearly 2000 falling 

 stars, and perhaps by the extraordinary fall of aerolites of 

 the 11th of December, 1836, at the village of Macao on the 

 river Assu, Brazil (Brande.s, Unterhalt. fiir Freunde der 

 Physik, 1825, Heft i. S. 65, and Comjites rendus, tom. v. p. 

 211). Capocci, from 1809 to 1836, has found records of 

 twelve actual falls of aerolites between the 27th and the 

 29th of November: and several others of the 13th of No- 

 vember, Iflth of August, and 16th of .luly (Comptes rendus, 

 tom. xi.'p. 357). It is curious that in the part of the earth's 

 orhit which corresjionds to the months of January and Feb- 

 ruary, and perhaps March, no periodical fall of shooting- 

 stars has yet been noticed ; nevertheless I myself observed 

 a remarkable number of shooting stars on the 15th of March, 

 1803, in the South Pacific Ocean; and a shower of the 

 same was seen in the city of Quito shortly before the tre- 

 men<lous earthquake of Riobamba (4th Feb. 1797). The 

 following epochs deserve the particular attention of ob- 

 servers ; 



22-25 April, 



17 July (17—26 July?) (Quet. Corr. 1837, p. 435), 



10 August, 



12—14 November, 



27—29 November, 



6—12 December. 

 The frequeticy of these streams, however great the differ- 

 ence between isolated comets and rings filled with asteroids, 

 ought not to excite astonishment when we think of the 

 depths of universal spare filled with myriads of <;omets. 



45 (p. 41.) — Ferd. v. Wrangel, Reise langs der Nordkiist* 

 von Sibirien in den Jahren 1820—1824, Th. ii. S. 259. On 

 the return of the thicker shower of the November asteroids 

 every thirty-four years, vide Olbers in Jahrb. 1837, S. 280. 

 I was informed in Cumana, that shortly before the dreadful 

 earthquake of 1766, just thirty-three years, therefore, before 

 the great exhibition of shooting stars of November 11 — 12, 

 1799, the same display had been seen. But the earthquake 

 of 1766 did not occur in Noveml)er, but on the 21st of Oc- 

 toJjer. It were worth the while of travellers in Quito to 

 investigate the particular day on which the volcano Cayam- 

 be appeared for an hour as if enveloped in a shower of fall- 

 ing stars, so that religious processions were set in motion 

 to appease the heavens I {vide mv Relat. histor. t. i. chap, 

 iv. p. 307 ; chap. x. p 520 and 527.) 



46 (p. 41.)— From a letter to me of January 24, 1838. 

 The extraordinary display of shooting stars of 1799 was ob- 

 served almost exclusively in America, from New Ilerrnhut, 

 in Greenland, to the Equator. The phenomena of 1831 and 

 1832 were imly seen in Europe ; those of 1833 and 1834 

 only in the United States of North America. 



47 (p. 41,)— Lettre de Mr. Edouard Biot A Mr. Quetelet 

 sur les anciermes apparitions d'etoiles filantes en Chine, in 

 Bull, de I'Acad. de Bruxelies, 1843, t. x. No. 7, p. 8. On 

 the notice from the Chronicon Ecclesiae Pragensis, vide 

 Boguslawski, Jun., in Poggend. Aiinalen, Bd. xlviii. S. 612. 

 To Note 12 should be added, that the orbits of four comets 

 (568, 574, 1337, and 1385) have been reckoned exclusively 

 from Chinese data. Vide John Russell Hind, in Schum. 

 Astr. Nachr. 1844, Nr. 498. 



43 (p. 41.) — " II parait qu'un nombre, qui semble inipui- 

 sable, de corps trop ])etits pour 6tre observes, se meuvent 

 dans le ciel, soit autour du soelil, soit autour des plan^tes, 

 soil peut-4tre mfeme autour des satellites. On suppose que 



