218 COSMOS. 



of divergence, i. e., together with the circumstance that 

 periodic shooting stars, independently of the rotation of the 

 Earth, proceed during several hours from the same star, 

 even when this star is not that toward which the Earth is 

 moving at the same time. According to the existing meas- 

 urements, fire-balls appear to move slower than shooting 

 stars ; but it nevertheless remains striking, that when the 

 former meteors fall, they sink such a little way into the 

 ground. The mass at Ensisheim, in Alsace, weighing 276 

 pounds (November 7th, 1492), penetrated only 3 feet, and 

 the aerolite of Braunau (July 14th, 1847) to the same depth. 

 I know of only two meteoric stones which have plowed up 

 the loose earth for 6 and 18 feet : these are the aerolites of 

 Castrovillari, in the Abruzzi (February 9th, 1583), and that 

 of Hradschina, in the Agram district (May 6th, 1751). 



Whether any thing has ever fallen from the shooting stars 

 to the Earth, has been much discussed in opposite senses. 

 The straw roofs of the parish Belmont (Departement de l'Ain, 

 Arondissement Belley), which were set on fire by a meteor 

 in the night of November 13th, 1835, just at the epoch of 

 the known November phenomenon, received the fire, as it ap- 

 pears, not from a falling shooting star, but from a bursting 

 rire-ball, which problematical aerolite is said to have fallen, 

 according to the statements of Millet d'Aubenton. A similar 

 conflagration, caused by a fire-ball, occurred on the 22d of 

 March, 1846, about three o'clock in the afternoon, in the com- 

 mune of St. Paul, near Bagnere de Luchon. Only the fall 

 of stones in Angers (on the 9th of July, 1822) was ascribed 

 to a beautiful falling star seen near Poitiers. This phenom- 

 enon, not sufficiently described, deserves great attention. The 

 falling stars resembled entirely the so-called Roman candles 

 used in fire-works. It left behind it a straight streak, very 

 narrow above, and very broad below, which lasted for ten 

 or twelve minutes with great brilliancy. Seventeen miles 

 northward of Poitiers an aerolite fell with a great detona- 

 tion. 



Does all that the shooting stars contain burn in the outer- 

 most strata of the atmosphere, whose refracting power causes 

 the phenomenon of twilight ? The above-mentioned various 

 colors, during the process of combustion, admit of the infer- 

 ence of a chemical difference in the substances. In addition 

 to this, the forms of these fiery meteors are exceedingly vari- 

 able ; some form merely phosphorescent lines of such fine- 

 ness and number, that Forster. in the winter of 1832. saw 



