ia 
Biographical Sketch of Prof. Olmsted. 115 
found, as yet, little favor among men of science. But, whether 
it prove ultimately to have any foundation in truth or not, 
Prof. Olmsted deserves very great credit for the unwearied dili- 
_ gence with which he has collected and recorded the facts, and 
or the earnestness with which he has called the attention of 
philosophers to this most interesting problem in physics. 
But Prof. Olmsted is most widely and favorably known to 
the scientific world by his papers, published chiefly in the Jour- 
nal of Science for 1834, on “meteoric showers,” or showers of 
shooting stars. His interest in the subject was first awakened, 
like that of many others, by the very remarkable phenomena of 
the morning of November 13th, 1833, when, in all parts of the 
United States, myriads of these meteors, especially between the 
hours of two and five o'clock, were seen falling in a brilliant and 
continuous shower through the heavens. Prof. Olmsted saw this 
magnificent display, indeed, not in its maximum grandeur, but 
only the portion of it which occurred after half past five o'clock, 
when his attention was first called to it by a friend. Yet obsery- 
ing’ it with the eye of a philosopher, he noted with care its most 
important features, and collecting at once all the observations he 
could obtain from various quarters, he made a careful classifica- 
tion and analysis of the facts, which he presented in two suc- 
cessive numbers of the American Journal of Science for 1834.* 
While preparing this paper he was led to entertain the idea that 
these meteors had a cosmical rather than a terrestria] or atmo- 
of the meteors, though apparently with a less degree of confi- 
dence, as appears from his own candid remark in his very able 
article on the subject in the twenty-sixth volume of the Journal 
of Science, “That he is not able, as yet, to adopt even his own 
inferences respecting the cause, in any other way than as conjec- 
tural and highly credible.” Both he and Prof. Olmsted, however, 
_ Clearly recognized the leading fact, which was decisive of the 
- question of cosmical origin, namely, the identity of the point of 
apparent radiation of the meteors with the point in the heavens 
towards which the earth was then moving in its orbit, and the 
names of both must consequently be associated, in the minds of 
. 
those who read their articles, with the theory which both so essen- 
tially contributed to establish. 
* Vol, xxv, No, 2, and Vol. xxvi, No. 1. 
