102 



RESEARCHES CONCERNING THE PERIODICAL 



a phenomenon on the 12th or 13th of November, to some spectators, either in 

 America or Europe. If we require, in addition to numbers, a parallelism of 

 relative paths, and a common tendency towards a point within 8° of the anti- 

 pode of the observer's true direction, there is still no conclusive evidence of a 

 failure of the phenomenon from 1832 to 1839. "Whether, however, their num- 

 bers or directions, except in 1832 and 1833, have in themselves any thing re- 

 markable or extraordinary, or which extensive anniversary observations would 

 not exhibit at other seasons of the year besides November and August, are 

 questions on which a difference of opinion may naturally exist. The portions 

 of earth's heliocentric longitude at which this peculiar November phenomenon, 

 whether considered more or less extraordinary, has occurred, are given by 

 Bessel in the paper above quoted, with a remark, that there are no grounds for 

 a definitive conclusion either of the constancy of position of this point in the 

 earth's orbit, or of a variation of it proportional to the time. 



Table IV. 



Mean time, Paris. 



true Equinox. 



O From 

 Mean do. 1800. 



1799, 



Nov. n^ 20h36'" 



50° 0' 



50° 0' 



1832, 



" 12 13 



50 42 



50 15 



1833, 



" 12 21 



50 48 



50 20 



1834, 



" 13 21 30 



51 34 



51 5 



1836, 



" 13 15 30 



51 51 



51 21 



1838, 



" 13 15 



51 20 



50 48 



After all that has been written concerning the November meteors, there is a 

 possibility that the anniversary character of the meteor showers of 1799, 1832, 

 and 1833 may have been accidental; that is to say, that the coincidence of the 

 heliocentric longitude and radius vector of the three remarkable clusters that 

 appeared at these respective dates, with those of the earth, may have been the 

 natural consequence of the motions of three independent groups, having nothino- 

 else in common in their geometrical relations. In such a view of the case, the oc- 

 casional appearance of an extraordinary number of these bodies, at certain posi- 

 tions on the earth's surface, on the 12th or 13th of November, since 1833, may 

 have been the result rather of extraordinary assiduity in searching for them, 

 than of any thing extraordinary in the distribution of these bodies in the system. 

 The small deflection of the supposed convergent point of 8° would then be re- 



