Miscellanies. 399 



may do, this meeting as a meeting peculiarly intended to bring the As- 

 sociation in contact with the west of England, I find that Cornwall re- 

 turns to my thoughts, with all the scientific zeal and intelligence, which 

 from my own personal intercourse I know to exist among the miners of 

 that county. Perhaps I have had very unusual opportunities of becoming 

 acquainted with their merits, for in two different years (1826 and 1828) 

 in the prosecution of certain subterraneous experiments, undertaken in 

 conjunction with the present Astronomer Royal and other persons, I 

 lived four months the life of a laboring miner, and learnt how admira- 

 ble for skill and conduct is the character of all classes of the mining 

 population in that region. If any of my Cornish friends are within 

 hearing, I gladly bid them God speed, and claim once more their wel- 

 come to the west. And that I may no longer detain you, to all of you, 

 gentlemen of the British Association, I bid God speed ; and from all of 

 you, gentlemen of Plymouth and its neighborhood, I seem to hear. Wel- 

 come to Plymouth !" 



MISCELLANIES. 



1. Observations on the Shooting Stars of August 9 and 10, 1841. — 

 From the 8th to the 13th of August, 1841, the sky at this place 

 was unfortunately too much overcast to permit any meteoric observa- 

 tions. The following statements, although not so full as could be 

 wished, show a decided recurrence this year of the meteoric sprinkle 

 which has so frequently been noticed about the 10th of August. It 

 will be remarked, that the moon was in her last quarter on the 10th of 

 the month. 



1. Pensacola, Flor. N. lat. 30° 28' ; W. long. 87° 12'. Dr. Joshua 

 Huntin<Tton, U. S. N., has communicated to me his observations at this 

 season, from which the following is an extract. " On the night of the 

 9th August, I kept watch for any unusual display of shooting stars. My 

 field of vision included about a sixth part of the hemisphere, from S. E. 

 to S. W., to an elevation of 65°, but was partly obscured by a bank of 

 cloud. I took my station at midnight, and between that hour and one 

 o'clock, saw foxirlecn of these meteors ; and between one and two 

 o'clock, twenty three. Most of them were small, and only five or six left 

 luminous trains. They generally described very short arcs, and with a 

 single exception, had a course towards the S. W. My position did not 

 enable me to determine the radiating point, which must have been 

 somewhere in the N. E. At two A. M., I watched in the north for half 

 an hour, and saw two shooting stars only. Towards tliree A. M., I 



