H. A. Newton on November Star-Showers. 385 
gent ~ pions it =o sma: ° due west. In the south appeared another 
s a pestle a fey ba Its Beg! was whitish blue, its train 
eames, aa its light Wiwsised'¢ ae: art d 8.W. of the belt -_ quadri- 
ral of Orion, and passed to th Lae ‘ "Brida ni. After this were two 
€ group 
small stars which followed the large one, and. still later there were se veril hundred 
Shooting stars, great and small, wae and confused, which followed in the same di- 
rection. 
x, A.D. 1698. 
Mr. Wartmann, of Geneva, has cited a notice of unusual num- 
bers of meteors seen on the 9th of November, A.D., 1698. 
XI. A.D, 1799. 
The remarkable display on Tuesday morning, Nov. 12th, 
1799, is well known from Humboldt’s <escrption of it as seen 
by him and Bonpland at Cumana, in 8. America. This is the 
first shower of the geographical extent of which we can form 
any very clear ideas 
Humboldt’s account is not entirely soem mite itself, a 
is a very inadequate description of what we v the dis 
must have been. It seems to have ieee pri ghially ae iy - 
least in part) while he had the impression that it was a local 
phenomenon. He says:? 
“From half after two, the most extraordinary luminous meteors were seen to- 
Ward the east...... housands of bolides and falling stars succeeded cath other 
ned a ay of att and all "exceeded 25° or 30°..... ‘ Mtr oo land re- 
Risin. afver sunris 
The same Medeicetd were seen at S. Fernando d’Apura, 300 
miles S.W. of Cum mana; at Marao, more than 200 miles farther 
in the same dir rection; and also near the Equator, over 7 
miles south of Cumana.‘ The Count of Marbois, at Cayenne, 
Says :° 
“The northern part of the sk bene seen all on fire. ‘Tnnumerable falling stars 
z= versed the ‘sat anh Ph woe — and a-half, and diffused so vivid a eat —_ 
meteors might be compare 
Andrew Ellicott, Esq., resorted - a bis journal as follows :* 
of 1799, about three o’clock, 4 a te Bea to sec the pyre el 
the stars, as it is ly called). anos nd and awful; 
be coe! geared unt called). Th pene skg-roekes at Pas disappea eared 
only by the light i the sun after daybreak. Pg eteors, which at any one instant 
trom peared as numerous as the stars, flew in n all a ig directions, except 
the earth, toward which they all inclined more 0 
ersonal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions; ..... trans. by Helen 
Mn Wigan ‘8¥o, “tindon ke ili, 831-333. 
Pers, Narr, pp. 3 5 Jbid., p. 3 337. 
"Trans. Am re Ph iil, rh sa 98, Also Eilicott’s Journal, 4to, 1814, p. 248. 
Jour. pour Senies, Vou. XXXVI, No. 111.—May, 1864. 
50 
