100 RESEARCHES CONCERNING THE PERIODICAL 



§ III. — Of Periodical or Anniversary Displays of Meteors. 



The question of the periodicity, or the anniversary character of remarkable 

 displays of shooting stars, was first started in 1833 and 1834, after the splendid 

 spectacle of November 12th of that year, by Professors Olmsted and Twining,^" 

 who had had "coincident ideas" on the subject. Three remarkable showers 

 of these meteors have certainly occurred, in 1799, 1832, and 1833, at nearly 

 the same point of the ecliptic, or earth's actual orbit; and either this coinci- 

 dence must be accidental, or there is an unusual affgreffation of these small 

 bodies in the plane in which the earth is then found, which should lead us to 

 expect other great displays to be witnessed in traversing the same part of our 

 orbit. Whether any such have occurred since 1833 is a point that has been 

 ably discussed by Bache,'*^ Olmsted,"*^ Twining,''^ Levering,"^ Herrick,^^ For- 

 shey,'*® and others in this country, and recently by many continental writers, 



*° Silliman, already quoted, vol. xxvi., p. 349, July, 1834. The following passage is explicit: 

 " Hitherto we have reasoned from the known laws alone of the solar system ; but the conclusion 

 now forces itself upon every reader, that if these bodies had an orbit, they had also a period, and 

 ought again to encounter the earth at some future time, or even to have encountered it in times 

 past, in the same part of its orbit — that is, at the same time of the year. When, therefore, the 

 startling confirmation of our theory springs up before us, that both the meteors of 1799, seen by 

 Humboldt at Cumana, and by EUicott in the vicinity of the United States, and those of 1832, seen 

 at Mocha in Switzerland, and on the Atlantic, appeared at the same annual period with those of 

 1833, that is, on the 12th and 13th of November, (civil reckoning,) we begin to feel as if further 

 doubt were irrational." 



** Sill., xxvii., p. 335, xxviii., p. 305, and xxix., p. 383. Prof. Bache considers the meteors 

 on the anniversaries of November 12th — 13th, 1834 and 1835, as presenting nothing extraordi- 

 nary, either in numbers or direction of convergent point. 



■" Silliman's Journal passim, since 1833. Prof. Olmsted thinks the anniversary returns have 

 continued from 1831 to 1838, and have since fallen off. See xxxv. p. 370. 



" Sill, xxvii., p. 339. Prof. Twining considers the recurrence in November 12th, 1834, on a 

 diminished scale as established, as also Nov. 13th, 1838. Sill. xxxv. p. 369, 



■** Idem, xxxv., p. 324. Prof. Lovering disbelieves in the anniversary returns of the November 

 period since 1833, and ascribes the convergent point to the observer's motion. 



■»* Idem., xxxviii. p. 377, and xl. p. 203. ^^ Mem. Am. Phil. Soc. 1840. 



