THE ORGUEIL METEOR. 351 



Humber plains near Toronto and is probably not uncommon in 

 Canada. Equisetum arvense is but too common everywhere. Equi- 

 setum limosum is common in watery places. Equisetum pratense, 

 Ehrh., for which Dr. Lawson adopts Wildenow's name umbrosum, is 

 rery common near Toronto. Equ. hyemale is exceedingly abundant 

 in Western Canada generally, and Equ. robustum grows near Toronto, 

 where it was first observed by Dr. Lawson. Equ. variegatum is we 

 believe rare. Equ. scirpoides occurs almost universally in damp woods. 

 In Dr. Lawson's paper descriptions and synonyms are given, and the 

 chief varieties of each species are carefully noted, so that it is a sum- 

 mary of the information at present possessed on the subject. 



W. H. 



THE METEOR OF 14th MAY, 1864. 



AEROLITES AND SHOOTING STARS. — BY M. J. JAMIN. 



{Translated from the " Revue des deux mondes,^' I5th July, 1864.) 

 On the 14th of May last, M. Brongiart, of the Academie des Sciences, being in 

 the country near Gisors, saw at eight o'clock in the evening a very brilliant 

 meteor. It was seen towards the south, passed from West to East, and did not 

 attain an elevation greater than from fifteen to twenty degrees above the horizon 

 below which it shortly vanished. Such meteors are common enough, but this 

 particular one is remarkably interesting, for, on the morrow, all the newspapers 

 of the South West of France informed us that it had been seen at the same hour 

 from Paris to the Pyrenees, and a great number of letters were addressed to the 

 Academy describing all the circumstances of the phenomenon. There could be no 

 doubt that it was a grand scientific event, and the investigation it demanded has 

 been made with conscientious care, by M. Daubre6, who was naturally marked 

 out for this pursuit by the nature of nis previous studies, and authorized to under- 

 take it by his double capacity of member of the Institute — and Professor at the 

 Museum. Thanks to the documents he has published and the researches he 

 instigated, we now know all that observation can tell us of this memorable 

 occurrence, 



Since the meteor was seen in the South by the cities of Gisors and Paris, it 

 was in that direction that the enquiries into the particulars of its appearance 

 proceeded. On interrogating the inhabitants of the zone which comprises Laval, 

 Le Mans, Blois, Tours and Bourges, it was learnt that these cities on the same 

 date and hour had been all at once flooded with a vivid light, and that numerous 

 persons, attracted to a promenade by a beautiful spring evening, had at once, as 

 in Paris, followed with their eyes a ball of fire half as large as the moon. It left 

 behind it a luminous train which gradually melted into a white trace like a cloud 

 elongated. At all these stations the ball was seen still in the South, and it was 

 therefore to be sought for further down. If w^e notice in passing, so as not to 



