386 Miscellanies. 



favorable as possible to the number of meteors, we may suppose 

 that he observed but for fifteen minutes, and saw fifteen meteors ; 

 that his range of vision embraced not more than one tenth of the 

 visible heavens, and that meteors fell in equal numbers over an equal 

 space in other quarters. All these assumptions, and they are for 

 the most part gratuitous, would make the number over the whole 

 sky six hundred in one hour, while, during the display in 1833, six 

 hundred and fifty meteors* were counted in about one fourth part of 

 the sky in fifteen minutes, making upwards of thirty six thousand in 

 one hour; and this only one hour and a quarter before sunrise. 



The observations of Mr. White do not seem to me, any more 

 than they do to Mr. Clark, to support the idea of a recurrence of 

 the meteoric phenomenon of 1833. The number of meteors which 

 he saw, was ten in half an hour, being less than the number seen in 

 fifteen minutes by Mr. Clark. The observations where made from 

 windows which commanded a view of the north and east, and sup- 

 posing that they commanded but one sixth part of the heavens, and 

 that the meteors were of the same frequency in every part, we should 

 have one hundred and twenty meteors for the whole sky in one 

 hour; one three hundredth part of the probable number visible in 

 1833 at Boston in one hour. During the display of 1833, ninety 

 eight meteors were seen in fifteen minutes, the rate being three hun- 

 dred and ninety two per hour, within three quarters of an hour be- 

 fore sunrise. 



Neither does it appear that the meteors seen by Mr. White had 

 an apparent radiant. One of the meteors of which be speaks, 

 "glided almost perpendicularly towards the earth: this was suc- 

 ceeded by another of a more brilliant appearance, which took a 

 westerly direction." 



The ten meteors to which I have before referred, are said to have 

 appeared between Leo, Virgo, and Ursa Major. This place as as- 

 signed in a general description, is a matter of course, since these 

 were the principle constellations within view from the north and east 

 windows from which Mr. White observed. Nothing is said about 

 a radiant, too remarkable a fact to have been overlooked had it 

 existed. 



But the number of these meteors has frequently been equalled 

 and even exceeded, in cases between which, and the meteors of 

 1833, no connexion has been claimed. I need only quote a few 



* Am. Jour. Science, Vol. XXV, p. 367. 



