102 THE NOVEMBER METEORS. 



atmospheric influences, be equally or more favourable. Captain 

 Hammond, who wrote from Mocha, on the Red Sea, states that 

 from one o'clock a.m. until after daylight on November i3th the 

 meteors were bursting in every direction. He says the sky was 

 clear, and the stars and moon were bright. The Arabs told him 

 they had been observing most of the night. This shower was 

 noticed in several other places. M. Tharand, a retired officer of 

 Limoges, stated that on the night of November nth, the work- 

 men engaged in laying the foundation of a new bridge over the 

 river Vienne, observed the firmament brilliant with meteors, 

 which at first only amused them ; but that after some hours the 

 number and splendour of these luminous appearances were so 

 greatly augmented that the people were seized with panic, and 

 so great was their terror that they abandoned their labour and 

 flew to their families, exclaiming that the end of the world had 

 arrived. Some of these people declared that they saw streams of 

 fire, others that they beheld bars of red-hot iron crossing each 

 other in all directions, others that they observed an immense 

 number of flying rockets. All agreed that the phenomena were 

 diffused over every part of the firmament, that they commenced 

 at eleven o'clock, and continued until four the next morning. 

 This display of 1832 was also seen in various places, from the 

 Mauritius to Switzerland. Dawes, a well known English 

 astronomer, says that on the same date in 1832, most astonishing 

 brilliant meteors were seen from the east with little intermission 

 for about an hour, when a thick fog supervened. 



But in 1833 the Leonid shower attained its maximum on 

 November 1 2th, and presented a spectacle the brilliant character 

 of which it is difficult to describe. The terms "prodigious," 

 " stupendous," " magnificent," and " splendid," have been freely 

 employed to convey an idea of the effect produced. Denning 

 says that mere words must always fail to paint in sufficiently vivid 

 colours the real aspect of this great natural phenomenon. At 

 Boston, in the U.S.A., the display continued during seven hours, 

 and it was estimated that 240,000 meteors were visible. This 

 night, the i2th, appears to have been cloudy in England, and 



