On the Meteors of 13th November, 1833. 147 
the two foregoing results, which gives 22634 miles, as the approxi- 
mate place of the radiant. 
This estimate is entitled to greater confidence from the fact that 
according to the estimate of Hon. S. DeWitt, of Albany, (obligingly 
communicated to the writer,) the height estimated from the observa- 
tions of Capt. Parker in the Gulf of Mexico, compared with those 
made at New Haven, is 2027 miles, differing less than one ninth part 
of the whole from the estimate made from the three other observa- 
tions combined. 
That this is an approximation to the truth, may be farther infer- 
red from the correspondence of these estimates to one founded on 
the data of Prof. Thomson, (see p. 138,) which gives the perpendicu- 
lar height above the earth’s surface 2424 miles. Finally, taking the 
mean of all the foregoing estimates, we obtain 2238 miles, as the 
nearest approximation we are at present able to make to the perpen- 
dicular height of the source of the meteors, above the surface of the 
earth.* 
3. The meteors fell towards the earth, being attracted to it by the 
force of gravity. 
It seems unnecessary to assign any other cause for the descent of 
these bodies to the earth, than gravity, a known and an adequate 
cause. It is easy to conceive, that bodies situated in space ata dis- 
tance from the center of the earth comparatively so small, as about 
six thousand miles, would be brought under the dominion of the 
earth’s attraction, whatever ‘may have been their previous tendency 
towards one another, or towards a central nucleus. Such a tendency 
indeed, if it existed, we shall hereafter see reason to be#eve was very 
slight, and would not materially oppose terrestrial gravitation. 
4. The meteors fell towards the earth in straight lines and in di- 
rections, which, within considerable distances, were nearly parallel 
with each other. 
The courses are inferred to have been in straight lines, because 
no others could have appeared to spectators in different situations, to 
have described arcs of great circles. In order to be projected into 
the arc of a great circle, the line of descent must be in a plane pass- 
* | know of no way of accounting for the want of a parallax in R. A. correspond- 
ding to that in Dec. (as might be expected in some of the observations,) except to 
ascribe it to an uncertainty in respect to time, which would obviously greatly affect 
the observations in R. A. 
