1838.] M, Warlmann on the Meteoric Showers of Nov. 1836. 167 



asserting that they have been repeated with uniform regularit)^ The 

 present year the light was very feeble in the morning sky, an effect 

 partly owing to the presence and peculiar splendour of the planet 

 Venus; but as soon after the i3th of November as the absence of the 

 moon would permit observations, the light appeared in the west imme- 

 diately after twilight, crossing the Milky Way, and rising in a pyramid 

 almost as bright as that, the triangular space between it and the 

 Galaxy, embracing the Dolphin, appearing by contrast strikingly 

 darker. 



I can account for this great and rapid change of place in the zodia- 

 cal light, a change which is unlike any it sustains at any other period 

 of the year, only by supposing that on or about the 13th of November 

 it comes very near to us, and that we pass rapidly by it, thus giving it a 

 great parallactic motion, an effect v. hich is in perfect accordance with 

 ail our previous conclusions. 



According to this view of the subject, the zodiacal light would no 

 longer be regarded as a portion of the su?i's atmosphere, but as a nebu' 

 lous or cometarij body, revolving round the sun within the eartKs orbit j 

 nearly in the plane of the solar equator, approaching at times very near 

 to the earth, and having a periodic time of either one year, or half a 

 year, nearly. 



Such, I affirm, would be the fact should the zodiacal light be proved 

 to be the body which affords the meteoric sho^Ktl's.— Edinburgh New 

 Phil. Journ.for July— Oct. 1837. 



2.— Notice respecting the Periodic Meteors of the I3lh of November,— 

 By M. L. F. Wartmann.* 



A Cosmological pheenomenon of the most interesting kind, although 

 new as yet in the records of science, is at present attracting the atten- 

 tion of astronomers, meteorologists, and physicists. The magnificent 

 assemblage of luminous points and globes which has been seen for 

 several years presents a highly important subject of inquiry, by which 

 we may be enabled to add to the stock of our knowledge respecting 

 the Constitution of our planetary system. 



The appeal made upon this occasion by M. Arago spread far and 

 wide, and this very year [1836] numerous observations, made in dilfer- 



* From the Bihliotheque Universelle, N, S. 2 de Ann. No. 18, June 1837 ; having been 

 read before the Society of Thysics and Natural History of Geneva, Dec. l.'i. 1836. 



