PORTION OF THE COSMOS. AEROLITES. 419 



V. 



PALLING STARS, BALLS OF FIRE, AND METEORIC STONES. 



SINCE the spring of 1845, when I published the first 

 volume of Kosmos, containing the Picture of Nature or 

 General View of Cosmical Phsenomena, the earlier results of 

 observation of falls of Aerolites, and of periodical streams of 

 falling stars which were then at my disposal, have been 

 largely augmented, thus rendering our knowledge on the 

 subject in many ways more extensive and more correct. 

 Many questions have undergone stricter and more critical 

 examination, more especially the very important one of 

 what has been called " radiation," . e. points of de- 

 parture from whence the shooting stars appear to 

 proceed, at the recurring epochs or periods at which 

 they are seen to fall in unusual abundance. Recent 

 observations, the results of which present a high degree of 

 probability, have also augmented the number of such epochs, 

 of which the August and November periods were for a long 

 time the only ones which attracted attention. The merito- 

 rious exertions, first of Brandes, Benzenberg, Olbers, and 

 Bessel ; and subsequently of Erman, Boguslawski, Quetelet, 

 Peldt, Saigey, Eduard Heis, and Julius Schmidt, have led 



