On the Origin of Shooting Stars, 373 



among other topics of meteorology, the writer introduces some re- 

 marks on shooting stars ; and it cannot but be very gratifying to me 

 to find the leading conclusions at which 1 had arrived on this difficult 

 subject, sustained by so high an authority as M. Arago. 



It may be recollected that in some observations on the Meteors of 

 November 13th, 1833, published in the 25th and 26th volumes of 

 this Journal, I endeavored to show, that these meteors had their or- 

 igin beyond the limits of the atmosphere,* — that they consist of 

 light, transparent, combustible bodies, which take fire on falling into 

 the atmosphere, having existed together in space in the form of 

 a nebulous cloud of great extent,! — that this cloud, or nebulous 

 body, has a periodical revolution around the sun, constituting a dis- 

 tinct member of the solar system.J 



On these several points, M. Arago remarks as follows :<§> 



" Since men of science have thought of observing shooting stars with accura- 

 cy, we may have seen how these phenomena, so long disregarded, — how these pre- 

 tended atmospheric meteors, these would be trains of hydrogen gas on fire, show 

 their claims to attention. Their parallax has always placed them much higher 

 than, according to prevailing theories, the sensible limits of our atmospliere would 

 seem to allow. In examining the direction in which shooting stars move, mt*^^ 

 usually, vfe perceive, by other means, that if they take fire in our atmosphere, 

 they at least do not take their rise there, but come from beyond ii."ll 



Again M. Arago observes : 



" We cannot get the smallest glimpse of an explanation of the astonishing ex- 

 hibition of fire balls, observed in America on the night of the 12th and i3th of 

 November, 1833, unless by supposing that besides the great planets, (and in this 

 number we comprehend even Ceres, Pallas, Juno and Vesta,) there revolve around 

 the sun myriads of small bodies, ivhich do not become visible except at the moment 

 when they come into our atmosphere and take fire." 



After giving an account communicated to him by M. Berard, an 

 officer in the French Navy, of a remarkable fall of meteors seen in 

 the Mediterranean on the coast of Spain, November 13, 1831, 

 M. Arago concludes with the following remark : 



" Thus is confirmed, more and more, the existence of a zone composed of mill- 

 ions of little bodies, whose orbits meet the plane of the ecliptic near the point that 

 the earth occupies evei'y year, from the lllh to the 13th of November. This is a 

 new planetary woi'ld, which is beginning to reveal itself to us." 



The account of M. Berard alluded to, is as follows ; and it is de- 

 serving of the greater attention because it confirms the statement of 



* Am. Journal of Science, XXVI. 140. t lb. p. 161 and 172. t lb. p. 165. 

 § See Bibliotheque Universelle, for September, 1835, pp. 71—75. 

 H lb. p. 72. 



