On the Meteors of 1 Sth JVovemher. 369 



others at Marao, one hundred and seventy-four leagues from Cumana, 

 by some of whom, as was afterwards found, the day had been mark- 

 ed in their ritual, and by others had been noted by the nearest church 

 festival ; they all compared it to a beautiful firework. Indeed this 

 phenomenon was ascertained to have been observed on an extent of 

 the globe, equal to 60 deg. of latitude and 91 deg. of longitude, at 

 the equator in South America, at Labrador, and in Germany." 



3. Phenomena as observed at West Point, (Lat. 41° 24' N., 

 Long. 73° 57' W.,) by Mr. Alexander C. Twining, Civil Engineer. 



" West Point, Nov. 15th, 1833. 



To Prof. Olmsted. 



Dear Sir, — I presume that you will be glad to receive from various 

 quarters, observations upon the brilliant and wonderful phenomenon 

 which appeared in the skies, on the morning of Wednesday the 13th. 

 It was not my fortune to witness it from the beginning; but I observ- 

 ed it for more than an hour, from a few minutes past five o'clock, 

 by the watch, till the morning light made it no longer visible. There 

 is little doubt that it had been in progress for hours, before my first 

 glimpse of it. I shall describe only those things which passed un- 

 der my own notice. 



The air was very clear ; and there was a perceptible and con- 

 stant light like twilight, given out from the numerous luminous bo- 

 dies which were in motion in the sky above. Of these bodies, a 

 host of which were darting out on every side and at every altitude, 

 the greater multitude were like stars suddenly lighted up' in a state 

 of rapid motion shooting a certain distance and gone in a second ; 

 leaving where they had passed a luminous trace, resembling common- 

 ly a filament of white or yellowish white cloud, of sensible breadth 

 in the middle, but tapering to a point at each extremity like two very 

 acute triangles united at their bases ; and these luminous traces, like 

 dissolving nebulae, gradually faded and were indiscernible after a few 

 seconds. A second class of luminous bodies, larger in diameter but 

 equally transient in continuance, and less frequent, shot along like 

 falling lamps, followed by a small short and pointed flame so brilliant 

 as to pain the sight for an instant. In sensible magnitude these might 

 be compared to the morning star, and in intensity of brilliance to 

 lightning. Occasionally, a bright flash like moderate or distant light- 

 ning, indicated the developeraent of a still larger body. One which 

 fell vertically to the west of north I had in full view. It was a deep 

 red fiery ball of perhaps one fifth the moon's apparent diameter, 

 which descended down to the visible horizon, and left its path of a 

 few degrees in extent luminous and striped with prismatic colors; — 

 my impression is that one edge through all its length was red, and 

 the other a greenish blue. It was occasionally the fact that prismat- 

 ic colors were developed in the trace of those smaller bodies which I 

 Vol. XXV.— No. 2. 47 



