Shooti?ig Siars of December 7, 1838. 303 



During the above observations the sky was sufficiently clear. 

 Where m is annexed to the number seen, allowance must be 

 made for the presence of the moon 5^ or 6J days past the full. 

 This table shows, that a season of meteoric abundance extended 

 from the 6th to the 11th (at least,) and that it came to its max- 

 imum early on the evening of the 7th. During the evenings of 

 the 6th and 7th, shooting stars were so frequent and brilliant, 

 that they attracted the attention of persons abroad in dilferent 

 parts of the city. Being then ignorant as to the period of the 

 night at which the display of Dec. 6, 1798, occurred, and having 

 fallen in rather too hastily with the common conclusion, that me- 

 teors are always most abundant between midnight and mornings 

 my arrangements were made chiefly for a onojming watch. The 

 appearances were consequently not so well observed as they 

 would have been, but for a reliance on this premature general- 

 ization. On the evening of the 6th, meteors were not much less ■ 

 numerous than on the evening of the 7th, and they did not in- 

 crease in number after midnight* Professor Olmsted informs 

 me that on the -evening of the 7th, from 6 J to 8 p. m., he, with 

 two of his sons, (F. A. Olmsted,- and D. Olmsted, Jr.,) without 

 very close attention, and in much less than the whole heavens, 

 counted meteors at the rate of at least 100 an hour. He re- 

 marked that at 8 they were becoming less frequent. From 8 ta 

 9, Mr. Haile and myself observed ninety three^ and we probably 

 saw not more than half the whole visible number ; for, although 

 a single observer can see large meteors throughout half the hemi- 

 sphere, yet he can not detect all the smaller ones, (which are 

 commonly the majority,) throughout more than an eighth part oi 

 the hemisphere. The meteors slightly diminished in number, as 

 the evening advanced ; but much to our regret, we were pre- 

 vented, after about 11 p. m., by an overclouded sky, ffom deter- 

 mining the rate of diminution, or the general progress of the phe- 

 nomenon. On the morning of the 8th, Mr. Haile watched from 

 4|h. to 5lh. (about a sixth of the hemisphere, in the N. W. being 

 nearly clear, ) and saw five meteors. 



The meteors of the 6th and 7th were not unlike those of ordi- 

 nary times : — ^many of them were large and splendid fire-balls, 



* The coincidence in this respect between the meteors of Dec. 6, 1798, and 

 those of Dec. 6 and 7, 1338, is obvious. 



