168 Periodic Meteors, or sujoposed Asteroids: [Jan. 



ent places, have been sent to the illustrious philosopher who had asked 

 for them. They concur in showing that, towards a point of the heavens 

 at a small distance from the stars and 7 in the constellation Leo, a 

 considerable quantity of shooting stars seem to be produced, and to 

 succeed one another at short intervals, precisely in the place where a 

 prodigious number of them had already been seen at Geneva in 1832, 

 and especially in the United States in 1833. What is the nature of 

 these fugitive stars ? Whence do they come ? Whither do they go 

 when they disappear from our sight ? Do they sometimes fall upon 

 the earth? Such are the principal questions which every one asks 

 himself, and which are of the highest interest. 



The much-wished-for fall of one of these meteors would without 

 doubt furnish the chemist and physicist with the means of explaining 

 certain points quite unknown. Those observers also, who were aware 

 of the importance of this inquiry, have not neglected to bestow their 

 attention in this direction, and some of them, in fact, state that they 

 have seen several of these meteors which were projected against the 

 sides of the mountains by which they were surrounded. This fact is 

 undoubtedly of a positive nature, but is it such as to prove the authen- 

 ticity of the fall of the meteor down to the surface of the earth? Have 

 not the illusions which exercise so'great an influence here, and under 

 which observers are more or less placed, contributed to a belief in a 

 projection towards the ground which was apparent only ? In support 

 of this suspicion I may be allowed to mention a fact which I had an 

 opportunity of stating more than six years ago in the former series of 

 the Journal of Geneva, in the numbers for March and April, 1830, as 

 follows : A meteor appeared on the 19th of March of the before-men- 

 tioned year, at half-past seven in the evening; according to the report 

 of eye-witnesses, it had a round disc, with a well-defined edge, which 

 was almost equal to that of the full moon, and which shed a strong 

 light of a bluish colour ; it circulated with great velocity from east to 

 west, and appeared to be at a very great height. Those who observed 

 it at Geneva, and who followed it with their eyes in its horizontal 

 course, thought they saw it burst in the air, and fall in pieces at some 

 paces before them. Other persons, living at the village of Chene,half 

 a league from Geneva, and who were by chance in the street, being 

 convinced that they had seen it fall on a neighbouring house, ran 

 directly to ascertain whether the building had not been set on fire. 

 This same meteor was also remarked at Saint-Legier, near Vevey, in 

 the canton of Yaud, and on the heights of Fraubrunnen in the canton 



