360 On the Meteors of loth JVovember. 



to the same origin, and regarding them as only modifications of the 

 same appearance. I found this opinion upon three general argu- 

 ments, deduced from the preceding statements. 



First, the optical resemblances between the two phenomena. True, 

 in the meteors observed on the 13th inst. the light was usually con- 

 centrated almost to a point, and more vivid than that of the aurora bo- 

 realis : but no one could fail to perceive a great resemblance to the au- 

 rora borealis, in those trains, which the meteors frequently left for some 

 minutes over many degrees of their paths ; and we have seen that 

 Biot says, that the aurora borealis sometimes " emits at intervals jets 

 of light resembling rockets, which leave after them a whitish train." 

 Here we see a passage of the two phenomena into each other, in 

 their optical characters. It may not, indeed, be possible in the pres- 

 ent state of our knowledge, to show why in the present instance the 

 meteors all assumed originally the appearance of stars. Yet I im- 

 agine we can conceive of causes enough to produce such a modifica- 

 tion, and thus be prevented the necessity of supposing them to be es- 

 sentially different in their nature. Was it because these meteors 

 moved in a direction opposed to that of the aurora borealis, and were 

 thus brought into such a situation that we saw them endwise, which 

 would of course greatly increase their brilliancy ? Or was it because 

 a greater quantity of the electric fluid was discharged, and in a more 

 concentrated form, owing to a peculiarity in the conducting power of 

 the columns ? Or was it because more of Biot's supposed phospho- 

 rescent inflammable matter was present and set on fire ? 



Secondly, the probability, that the distance of the theatre of both 

 the phenomena from the earth was nearly the same. It is generally 

 admitted, as we have seen, that the aurora borealis belongs to the 

 upper regions of the atmosphere : and upon the whole, I think we 

 must admit the same in respect to the recent meteoric exhibition ; 

 although one of the facts mentioned by Prof. Olmsted, rather mili- 

 tates against this conclusion. But how else can we explain it, that 

 the wind affected one of the trains from the meteor. And there is 

 another circumstance leading to the conclusion that this was an at- 

 mospheric phenomenon. Mr. Ellicott, in his account of a similar 

 appearance in 1799, mentions that it was accompanied, as in the 

 present instance, with a great and sudden change in the weather, 

 from warm to cold, and in the wind, from south to northwest. A 

 similar change we know often precedes, accompanies, or soon fol- 

 lows an unusual display of the aurora borealis. And one can hardly 



