Shooting Stars. 21 



presence of inanimate substances in the atmosphere, at least 

 in rain-water; — and from the narrative, which was several 

 times communicated by a soldier, who had served some cam- 

 paigns in Spain, that in Spain, while standing as centinel 

 during cold nights, he had frequently observed shooting 

 stars, and in the morning, in wet places, in the spots where, 

 according to his opinion, the shooting stars had fallen, he 

 had found white gelatinous masses, which soon dissolved; — 

 from all these circumstances, as I have stated in my disserta- 

 tion upon rain-water, I was strongly inclined to refer the 

 mass, which was examined by Buchner, to an atmospheric 

 origin. 



Mr. Schwabe, an apothecary of Dessau, has lately pub- 

 lished, in Kastner''s Archives, a dissertation upon this sub- 

 ject, in which he states, that he has had an opportunity to 

 examine a mass, that had been found in a wet meadow, 

 which was gelatinous, and of a green color. Mr. Schwabe 

 decides this mass to be the real nostoc commune Vauch. (tre- 

 mella nostoc L.) because by his microscopic observations, he 

 found in it, distinctly to be traced, the structure of the singu- 

 lar nostoc. Not only the exterior form and the locality of 

 this mass agreed with Buchner's, but the chemical examina- 

 tion also exhibited a great similarity between both substan- 

 ces. Schwabe consequently believes, that we must necessa- 

 rily consider the substance under discussion, as the real tre- 

 mella, and that the one examined by Buchner must actually 

 have possessed the same structure, notwithstanding Buch- 

 ner, on account of the peculiar nature or condition of his 

 mass, has denied the possibility of discovering in it an organ- 

 ic structure. 



However, when we accurately compare the descriptions, 

 which each of these naturalists gives of his particular speci- 

 men, we find some diversities, besides the organic structure 

 of Schwabe's specimen, and its absence in Buchner's. 

 Schwabe's mass was of a greenish color ; that examined by 

 Buchner was white, resembling the mucilage of gum traga- 

 canth. The substance of Schwabe emitted an odor while it 

 was burning, not of animal matter, but similar to that of 

 burning conferva, rivularia and cataphora, and made a shi- 

 ning coal, which retained the external form of the mass ; and 

 being reduced to ashes, he found in them a portion of sili- 

 ceous earth, carbonate, muriate, and sulphate of potass, to- 



