

NOTES. XXIX 



ph) densitate putaretur, Baldr. p. 88) ; and this event was spoken of at the 

 Council of Ciennont as prognosticating the great movement in Christendom 

 (Wilkeo, Gesch. der Kmwziige, Bd. i. S. 75). On the 22d of April, 1800, a 

 great fall of sliootiug stars was seen in Virginia and Massachusetts : it was " a 

 fire of rockets which lasted two hours." Arago was the first to call attention 

 to this (April) "trainee d'asteroules" as a recurring phenomenon (Annuaire, 

 1836, p. 297). The fall of aerolites iu the beginning of the month of De- 

 cember is also deserving of notice. In favour of their periodical recurrence 

 as a meteoric stream, we have the early observation of Brandes in the night 

 6 7 December, 1798, when he counted 2000 shooting stars (Brandes, 

 Unterhalt fiir Freunde der Physik, 1825, Heft i. S. 65) ; and perhaps the 

 immense fall of aerolites oil the llth of December, 1836, in Brazil, by the 

 river Assu, near the village of Macao (Comptes-rendus, T. v. p. 211). 

 Capocci, in the interval from 1809 to 1839, has made out twelve actual falls 

 of aerolites between the 27th and 29th of November, as well as others on the 

 13th of November, 10th of August, and 17th of July (Comptes-reudus, 

 T. ii. p. 357). It is remarkable that hitherto no periodical falls of shooting 

 stars, or streams of aerolites, have been observed in that part of the Earth's 

 orbit to which the months of January and February, and, perhaps, also the 

 month of March, correspond, although I myself witnessed a striking display 

 of shooting stars on the 15th of March, 1803, in the Pacific; and a great 

 number had been seen in the city of Quito a short time before the great 

 earthquake of Riobamba (4th of February, 1797). Reviewing what has beea 

 stated, the epochs most deserving of attention appear to be 

 2225 April. 



17 July (1726 July?) (Quetelet, Corr. 1837, p. 435). 

 10 August. 

 12 14 November. 

 27 29 November. 

 612 December. 



The frequency of these streams ought not to astonish us, if we remember the 

 my rinds of comets which fill the regions of space, great as is the diflerenct 

 between insulated comets and rings composed of asteroids. 



p) p. 116. Ferd. v. "Wiangel, Reise laugs der Nordkiiste von Sibirien in 

 den Jahren 18201824, Th. ii. S. 259. Respecting the return of the 

 denser swarm of the November stream after a period of 34 years, see Gibers, 

 in the Jahrbuch, 1837, S. 280. I was told at Cuinana that, a short time 

 before the terrible earthquake of 1766, 33 years, therefore, before the great 



