Miscellanies. 387 



cases. On August 8th, 1823, Prof. Brandes noticed sixty five in 

 two hours ; on August 10th " one hundred and fifty were noticed in 

 less than two hours, and Prof. Brandes remarks, that they were 

 obliged to leave many unrecorded.* During August, 1833, Mr. 

 Espy and myself noted, over one fifth of the visible heavens, thirty 

 seven meteors in one hour. We have noted eight in fifteen min- 

 utes, six in nine and a half minutes, five in ten minutes, and this 

 at a time of the evening, and at a season, when meteors are com- 

 paratively unfrequent. At other times one meteor only would be 

 seen in half an hour, showing the variable nature of the occurrence 

 even on the commonest occasions. 



Prof. Olmsted himself refers to showers of meteors seen in April, 

 1803, in Virginia; in England on the 19th oi November ; in France, 

 in April, 1833; in August, 1833, in England, fee. 



There is no connexion, in point of time, between the English ob- 

 servations and those made in America. The meteors seen by both 

 Mr. White and the Rev. Mr. Clark, occurred at a time when meteors 

 were not unfrequent even at New Haven. 



The " American testimonies^^ given by Prof. Olmsted, would de- 

 termine the question, if it were, did meteors occur on Nov. I3th, 

 1834, but upon the one really at issue they do not bear. The au- 

 thorities, a member of the Theological Seminary at Andover, an 

 anonymous writer in the St. Louis Observer, and a female servant 

 at Zanesville, give no particulars on which to found an opinion as 

 to the nature of the meteors which they saw, the St. Louis Ob- 

 server merely states loosely that he saw at 5 A. M. in fifteen or 

 twenty minutes thirty or forty meteors. The accounts want the pre- 

 cision necessary to form an opinion in the cases. 



In regard to the remarks which my friend Prof. Olmsted appends 

 to his facts, it is necessary to observe, First, that in addition to the 

 indirect evidence of no meteoric display having been seen at eleven 

 military posts from Maine to Florida, six western posts and five on 

 the northern frontier and which he notices, I presented other indi- 

 rect evidence, not noticed by him, derived from scientific friends at 

 Wilmington, Baltimore, the University of Virginia, and the Uni- 

 versity of North Carolina, and direct evidence, also unnoticed by 

 him from observations at New York, Philadelphia, and Nashville. 

 Further, that a sentinel at Mackinac, where meteors did fall in con- 



* On shooting stars, by E. Loomis, Am. Jour. Vol. XXVIII, p. %. 



