454 The November Shooting Stars. 



coarser," that they are not luminous as they travel through 

 space : but that as they near the earth, the friction of our 

 atmosphere ignites them, and they are entirely consumed in a 

 few moments. This description applies to meteors such as we 

 see in general, and during the periodic displays; but occa- 

 sionally we encounter bodies of greater density, which cannot 

 be so readily consumed, sometimes entire, and at other times 

 in a fragmentaxy condition. Samples of such meteors are to 

 be found in various mineralogical collections. 



The subject of these metallic stones which have really 

 " fallen from the sky''' is most curious, but must not be 

 pursued here; we have made a sufficiently long digression 

 from our fourth question, " What grounds were there for sup- 

 posing that a more splendid display of meteors than usual 

 would be seen in 1866?" To answer this, I revert to the 

 Intellectual Observer for August, 1866. It contains (p. 39) 

 extracts from a lecture given at the Royal Institution, by Mr. 

 Alexander Herschel, On the Shooting Stars of the years 

 1865-66, and on the probability of the Cosmical Theory of their 

 origin. 



The lecturer stated that Professor H. A. Newton, of Yale 

 College, U.S., had calculated that in the current year, 1866, a 

 prodigious flight of meteors, the most imposing of its kind, 

 and visible over a large area of the earth's surface would make 

 its appearance — perhaps for the last time in the present 

 century — on the morning of the 14th of November. Pro- 

 fessor Newton had searched in ancient records, and observed 

 that between the 12th of October (O.S.) and the 13th of 

 November (N.S.), during the years from a.d. 902 to 1833, 

 not less than thirteen great star- showers have been recorded. 

 When he had made the requisite corrections for the change of 

 the earth's position, astronomically known as the precession of 

 the equinoxes, he was able to compare the dates with exact- 

 ness,* and became convinced of the fact that there are period- 

 ical re-appearances of the November-shower in extra grandeur, 

 at intervals separated from each other by nearly the third part 

 of a century, or by some multiple of this period. This shower 

 was observed from Cumana in South America by Humboldt 

 and his companion Bonpland, on the moruing of November 

 12th, 17S9, and was a spectacle of extraordinary grandeur. 

 Nothing comparable to it appeared till the morning of the 

 13th of November, 1833, when another magnificent display 

 was seen in the United States of America. 



Professor Newton proposed the following theory to account 

 for these returns of the phenomenon, that there is a condensed 



* See British Association Report, 1863, p. 896. 



