Cliv NOTES. 



cited if they had been known ; for example, the streams of meteors observed 

 by Kloden, at Potsdam, 1823, 1213 Nov. ; by Berard, on the Spanish 

 coast, 1831, 1213 Nov. ; and by Count Suchteln, at Orenburg, 1832, Nov. 

 1213. (Kosmos, Bd. i. S. 129, Engl. edit. p. 114; and Schumacher's 

 Afltr. Nachr. No. 303, S. 242.) The great phenomenon of the llth aud 

 12th November, 1799, described by Bonpland and myself (Voyage aux Re- 

 gions equinox iales, livre iv. chap. 10, T. iv. p. 34 53, ed. in-8vo.), lasted 

 from 2 h. to 4 h. A.M. Throughout our entire journey through the forest 

 region of the Orinoco, and as far south as the Rio Negro, we found that this 

 extraordinary fall of meteors had been seen by the missionaries, and in some 

 cases had been noted in their ecclesiastical records. It had also been seen 

 and had astonished the Esquimaux in Labrador and in Greenland, as far as 

 Lichtenau and New Herrnhut, in latitude 64 14'. This phsenomenon, which 

 was visible in America at the same time at the equator and near the polar 

 circle, was also seen in Europe by the Minister Zeising, at Itterstedt, near 

 Weimar. The periodicity of the stream of St. Lawrence (10th of August) 

 did not draw general attention until much later than the November phseno- 

 menon. I have collected with care all the accounts with which I am ac- 

 quainted, of accurately observed and considerable falls of meteors of the 12th 

 to the 13th of November, up to 1846. I find fifteen such falls : in 1799, 

 1818, 1822, 1823, 1831, 1832, 1833, 1834, 1835, 1836, 1837, 1838, 1839, 

 1841, and 1846. All which differ more than a day or two as Nov. 10, 

 1787, and Nov. 8, 1813 are excluded. This degree of periodicity, almost 

 to a single day, is the more surprising, because bodies of such small mass are 

 so easily liable to perturbation, and the breadth of the ring in which the 

 meteors are imagined to be included may comprise several days of the Earth's 

 course in its orbit. The most brilliant November streams have been those of 

 1799, 1831, 1833, and 1834. [Where, in my description of the meteors of 

 1799, it is said that a ball of fire had a diameter of 1 or H, it should have 

 been 1 or If diameters of the Moon.] This is the place for mentioning 

 also the ball of fire which attracted the special attention of Monsieur Petit, 

 Director of the Astronomical Observatory of Toulouse, and of which he has 

 computed the revolution round the Earth. (Comptes rendus, 9 Aont 1847 ; 

 and Schum. Astr. Nachr. No. 701, S. 71.) 



(700) p. 437. Forster, Memoire sur les Etoiles filantes, p. 31. 



(? m ) p. 438. Kosmos, Bd. i. S. 131 and 405 ; Engl. ed. p. 116 and xrix. 



(7 02 ) p. 438. Katntz, Lehrbuch der Meteorologie, Bd. iii. S. 277. 



C 703 ) p. 439. The great fall of aerolites of Crema and the banks of the 



