On the Meteors of ISth November. 395 



(3.) They went off in radii from one center in all directions, but 

 more frequently, and in greater numbers to the S. E. and N. E. 

 (Hartford Independent Press.) 



(4.) They all appeared to shoot from one and the same center to- 

 wards the circumference of a circle. This center was in the cluster 

 of stars called the sickle, about the middle of its bend, and about 6° 

 or 7° northwesterly of the star Regulus. (F. L., Union Town, 

 Penn^ Democrat.) 



(5.) According to my observation the radiant point was directly in 

 the zenith. (Mr. James Sperry, Henrietta, N. Y.) 



(6.) The central part seemed to stand nearly over our village, 

 from whence, (some further off,) issued thousands of small meteors 

 similar to stars, descending in all directions towards the horizon. 

 (Wooster, Ohio, Telegraph.) 



(7.) Capt. Parker, of the ship Junior, then in the Gulf of Mex- 

 ico, saw a radiant point in the north east, from which the motions of 

 all the meteors were directed. (Mr. Alex. C. Twining.) 



(8.) See among the general descriptions, Nos. 1. 3. 4. 5. 6. 8. 10. 



Remarks, — This apparent radiation from a common center, is 

 mentioned much more uniformly in places northward of the City of 

 Washington, than in places southward of that city, where the meteors 

 are generally represented as flying in all parts of the heavens; yet the 

 same fact is recognized in the accounts from Augusta and Macon, in 

 the state of Georgia, and from Kingston, Jamaica, at which places 

 the meteors are said to proceed from the zenith. Dr. Smith, (see p. 

 379.) thinks it could not have been true of the phenomenon as exhib- 

 ited in the western part of N. Carolina; and had it been as conspicuous 

 there as here, or had it even been discoverable there at all, it is difficult 

 to see how it could have escaped so acute an observer. On the 

 northern limits also, to which our information has extended, as at 

 Concord, N. H. and Buffalo, N. Y., the regularity of descent from a 

 common center seems to have been interrupted, since at these pla- 

 ces some of the meteors rose, while others fell, and others moved in 

 all directions. 



Those who are unaccustomed to astronomical observations, are 

 apt to assign a wrong position to the zenith from the difficulty of 

 looking directly upwards. The error frequently amounts to ten or 

 fifteen degrees, a fact which will account for discrepancies in the 

 statements of different observers of the radiant point in question, one 

 placing it at the zenith, and another fifteen degrees southeasterly 

 from it, where the time and place of observation were nearly the 

 same. 



