NOTES. XXV 



In the night 12 13 Nov. 1822, shooting stars, mingled with balls of fire, 

 were seen in great numbers by Kloden, at Potsdam (Gilbert's Ann. Bd. Ixxii. 

 S. 219). 



13 Nov. 1831, at 4 A.M. a great fall of shooting stars was seen by Capt. 

 Berard, on the Spanish Coast near Cartagena del Levante (Annuaire, 1836, 

 p. 297). 



On the night of the 12 13 Nov. 1833, in North America, the memorable 

 phenomenon of which Denison Olmstead has given so excellent a description. 

 On the night 13 14 Nov. 1834, in North America, the same stream, bu 4 " 

 less considerable in numbers (Poggend. Ann. Bd. xxxiv. S. 129). 



On the 13th Nov. 1835, near Belley in the Departement de 1'Ain, a barn 

 was set ou fire by the fall of a sporadic fire-ball (Anuuaire, 1836, p. 296). 



In 183 8 the stream showed itself most decidedly on the night 1314 

 Nov. (Astr. Nachr. 1838, N. 372). 



(^J p. 112. I am aware that among the 62 shooting stars simultaneously 

 observed at the request of Professor Brandes, in Silesia, in 1823, there were 

 a few which appeared to have an elevation of 45'7 to 60, and even 100 

 German miles (or 182'8 to 240, and even 400 English miles) (Brandes, 

 Unterhaltuugen fiir Freunde der Astronomic und Physik, Heft i. S. 48) ; but 

 all determinations above 30 German, or 120 English miles, are regarded by 

 Olbers as doubtful, on account of the smallness of the parallax. 



( 6S ) p. 112. The planetary velocity of translation in the orbit is, in 

 Mercury, 26'4 ; in Venus, 19*2 ; and in the Earth, 16'4 miles in a second. 



() p. 113. Chladni informs us that an Italian physicist, Paolo Maria 

 Terzago, in 1660, was the first who noticed the possibility of aerolites being 

 stones from the moon. This was on the occasion of a fall of aerolites in 

 Milan, by which a Franciscan monk was killed. He says, in a writing 

 entitled "Musseum Septalianum Manfredi Septalse, Patricii Mediolanensis 

 industrioso labore constructum," Tortona, 1664, p. 44, "Labant philoso. 

 phorum mentes, sub horum lapidum ponderibus ; ni dicere velimus, lunam 

 terrain alteram, sive mundum esse, ex cujus montibus divisa frusta in infe- 

 riorem nostrum hunc orbem delabantur." Without knowing any thing of 

 this conjecture, Olbers was led, on the occasion of the celebrated fall of 

 meteoric stones at Sienna (16 June, 1794), to undertake, in the follow, 

 ing year, an investigation of the initial projectile force which would be 

 requisite to bring to the earth masses erupted at the surface of the moon. 



KThis balistic problem occupied for ten or. twelve years the attention of th 

 geometers Laplace, Biot, Brandes, and Poisson. The then prevailing, but 



