AEROLITES 113 



parent diameter of the Moon, innumerable quantities of shoot- 

 ing- stars have, on the other hand, been observed to fall in 

 forms of such extremely small dimensions that they appeal 

 only as moving points or phosphorescent lines.^ 



It still remains undetermined whether the many luminous 

 bodies that shoot across the sky may not vary in their nature. 

 On my return from the equinoctial zones, I was impressed 

 with an idea that tn the torrid regions of the tropics I had 

 more frequently than in our colder latitudes seen shooting 

 stars fall as if from a height of twelve or fifteen thousand feet ; 

 that they were of brighter colors, and left a more brilliant line 

 of light in their track ; but this impression was no doubt owing 

 to the greater transparency of the tropical atmosphere,! which 



times, according to which, the lights in the fiiinament were said to under 

 go a process of sn^iffing or cleaning ; and other nations generally adopt a 

 term expressive of a shot ov fall of stars, as the Swedish stjernjfall, the 

 Italian stella cadente, and the English star shoot. In the woody district 

 of the Orinoco, on the dreary banks of the Cassiquiare, I heard the na- 

 tives in the Mission of Vasiva use terms still more inelegant than the 

 German star snuff. (^Relation Historique du Voy. aux Rigions Equinox., 

 t. ii., p. 513.) These same tribes term the pearly drops of dew which 

 cover the beautiful leaves of the heliconia star spit. In the Lithuanian 

 mythology, the imagination of the people has embodied its ideas of the 

 nature and signification of falling stars under nobler and more graceful 

 symbols. The Parca?, Werpeja, w^eave in heaven for the new-born 

 child its thread of fate, attaching each separate thread to a star. When 

 death approaches the person, the thread is rent, and the star wanes and 

 sinks to the earth. Jacob Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie, 1843, s. 685. 



* According to the testimony of Professor Denison Olmsted, of Yale 

 College, New Haven, Connecticut. (See Poggend., Annalen der Physik, 

 bd. XXX., s. 194.) Kepler, who excluded fire-balls and shooting stars 

 from the domain of astronomy, because they were, according to his 

 views, " meteors arising from the exhalations of the earth, and blend- 

 ing with the higher ether," expresses himself, however, generally with 

 much caution. He says : *' Stella cadenies sunt materia viscida inflam- 

 mata. Earum aliquce inter cadendum absumuntur, aliqucB vere iii terram 

 cadunt, pondere sua tractce. Nee est dissimile vero, quasdam conglohatas 

 esse ex materia faeculentd, in ipsam auram a;theream immixta : exque 

 aStheris regione, tractu rcctilineo, per a'erem trajicerc, ceu minutes com- 

 etas, occulta causa motus utrorumque.''^ — Kepler, Epit. Astron. Coper- 

 nicanae, t. i., p. 80. 



t Relation Historique, t. i., p. 80, 213, 527. If in falling stars, as in 

 comets, we distinguish between the head or nucleus and the tail, we 

 shall find that the gi-eater transparency of the atmosphere in tropical 

 climates is evinced in the greater length and brilliancy of the tail which 

 may be observed in those latitudes. The phenomenon is therefore not 

 necessarily more frequent there, because it is oftener seen and contin- 

 ues longer visible. The influence exercised on shooting stars by the 

 character of the atmosphere is shown occasionally even in our temper- 

 ate zone, and at veiy small distances apart. Wartraann relates that on 

 the occasion of a November phenomenon at two places lying very near 



