Miscellanies. 179 



4. Descartes states (Meteora, cap. vi. sect. xvi. Amst. 1656) that he 

 had in several instances, during a hot suffocating time in the summer, obr 

 served showers of rain in large drops, before any clouds had appeared. 



5. Antonius le Grand, in his Historia Naturce, (Lond. 1680, 4to,) re- 

 marks, that sometimes it begins to rain before the clouds are seen ; and 

 that he once observed an occurrence of this nature, while walking in the 

 fields in a calm, hot, suffocating day. p. 273. 



5. European observations on the Meteoric Shower of November, 

 1838. — In our last number, Professor Olmsted gave an account of the 

 observations made in this country at the time of the expected return 

 of the meteoric shower of November, which indicated that in 1838, 

 this phenomenon was visible chiefly on the morning of the 14th of 

 that month. The inference which this fact naturally suggested, that 

 the exhibition w^as more splendid in places to the east of us, is now 

 amply confirmed by the following important information from Austria, 

 ■which we take from LTnstitut of Dec. 27th, 1838. 



" M. Littrow, Director of the Observatory of Vienna, has published 

 a notice in the Gazette of that city, which proves that an extraor- 

 dinary display of shooting stars was visible there in November last. 

 On the 10th of November, 1838, from 8 P. M. to the next morning, 

 nine meteors per hour were counted, which is, according to M. Que- 

 telet, about the average hourly number visible to a single observer 

 during the year. On the 11th, the sky was clear from 6 to 11 P. M., 

 and twenty meteors per hour were counted. The night of the 12th 

 was so cloudy that no observation could be made. On the 13th, the 

 sky cleared up about midnight and remained so during the rest of the 

 night. During these six hours, one thousand and two shooting stars 

 were observed, which gives a mean of one hundred and sixty-seven per 

 hour. But the phenomenon was far from being of uniform intensity 

 during this period. It increased in frequency from the first until 4 

 A. M., and after that hour, decreased. In the first hour, thirty-two 

 meteors were seen ; in the s-econd, fifty-two ; third, seventy ; fourth, 

 one hundred and fifty-seven ; fifth, three hundred and eighty-one ; 

 sixth, three hundred and ten. During the night following, (14th,) the 

 sky was too cloudy to permit observation." 



The number of observers should have been stated : we presume 

 there were enough to note all, or nearly all, the meteors visible above 

 the horizon of Vienna. 



