METEORS OF AUGUST AND NOVEMBER. 123 



opportunity of making it. Althoug-h it has no relation to the subject of nebulae, 

 which I was then observing, (unless we suppose these bodies to be the rem- 

 nants of an original nebulous structure of our own system,) yet the subject of 

 meteors is now attracting so much attention in Europe as to render the early 

 publication of this notice not unimportant. 



" During four or five evenings in the vicinity of August 9th, between twenty 

 and thirty meteors passed the field of view. About twenty of these occurred 

 on the 9th and 10th, during which nights I had the field almost constantly 

 under my eye, until three or four o'clock in the morning. Their apparent 

 brightness and velocity, as magnified by the whole power of the telescope, 

 were, on the average, about the same, or rather less than that of those seen by 

 the naked eye, (which latter class, to avoid repetition of the phrase, I will call 

 the ordinary meteors.) They were of a very sensible size, more so than that 

 of ordinary meteors of the same absolute brightness. On the average they 

 were about half or one-third the diameter of Jupiter, and none were as large 

 as that body. Their outline, however, was somewhat indefinite, like a star 

 out of focus. In short, if such objects as the planetary nebulae H. IV. 16 

 and 18, (which, and others of that class, had been observed a few even- 

 ings before,) could pass a field of view of between 30° and 40° of apparent 

 diameter in about 0'.2 or 0'.3, I conceive they would exhibit, in every re- 

 spect, all that could be gathered from so few of these objects during their 

 brief intervals of transit. One only of the number appeared star-like, and of 

 the twelfth magnitude. Their directions were so various that any judgment 

 of their general tendency was relinquished. 



" It is believed that these facts are not merely idly curious. We are enabled 

 to gather from them the same information concerning the comparative remote- 

 ness of these telescopic meteors, that we already have of the relative distance 

 of telescopic stars to those usually visible; for the chances were very great 

 against the passage of a single ordinary meteor, during either night, across the 

 minute space of sky actually occupied by the field of view. The appearance 

 of so many of the telescopic within this space proved them to be vastly more 

 numerous: and they were proportionally fainter; because invisible to the 

 naked eye, and because the whole light of so large a telescope was unable to 

 magnify them into an equality even with those seen by unassisted vision. 

 Now, in these two particulars, great increase of number^ and proportionate y^e- 



