ISO 



M. Queielet on Shooting Slavs, 



[Jan. 



of the moon, according to the opinion of Benzenbevg, Chladni, and 

 other physicists* ? I should he inclined to think that a distinction must 

 be made between the shooting stars which leave luminous trains 

 after them, persistent and often characterized by sparks, and those 

 whose course is marked by a trace of light as momentary as the ap- 

 pearance of the star, and which is only owing to the duration of the 

 impressions on the retina. The first appear to me to be really 

 bodies foreign to our earth. The 31st July 1824, I observed an aero- 

 lite, or luminous mass, which presented very remarkable circumstan- 

 ces, left sparks on its passage, and must have fallen in the neighbour- 

 hood of Antwerp. 



[The principle authorities and sources of information on the interest- 

 ing subjects of shooting stars and the alleged periodicity of certain ap- 

 pearances of them, have been cited in the preceding papers of MM. 

 Wartmann and Quetelet ; but we may usefully add a few references in 

 detail to the observations and researches of the physicists in the Unit- 

 ed States, who have been the first to call attention to the apparent pe- 

 riodical previous appearance and return of the brilliant shower of me- 

 teors witnessed in November, 1833. 



At present, the recurrence of the ^Aoi^-er o/ meteors, as it has been 

 termed, is asserted to have taken place about the end of the second 

 week in November, in the years 1799, 1831, 1832, 1833, 1834, 1835,and 

 1836. On the other hand, many observers deny that any remarkable 

 or unusual phsenomenon of the kind was seen, except in the years_17^*9 

 and 1833, affirming that a greater number of shooting stars was ob- 

 served in the other years (especially in those subsequent to 1833), 

 merely because the attention of observers was specially directed to 

 them at a certain time. The following papers and notices, among 

 others, have appeared in late volumes of Professor Silliman's Ame- 

 rican Journal of Science and Arts. 0?i the meteors of Nov. 13, 1833 ; 

 by Prof. E. Hitchcock : vol. xxv. p. 354. On the same subject, and 

 on the Meteors of Nov. 13, 1834, and of Nov. 1835 ; by Prof. D. Olm- 

 sted : vol. xxv. page 36'^ ; vol. xxvi. p. 132; vol. xxix. p. 168, 377; 

 vol. XXX. p. 370. Investigations respecti7ig the meteors of Nov. I3ih, 

 1833, &c.; by A. C. Twining: vol. xxvi. p. 320. Papers, by Prof. 

 A. D. Bache, de?iying that any recurrence of the phoenomenon took place 

 in Nov., 1834 : vol. xxviii ; and vol. xxix. p. 383. An Observation in 



* Die Stemschuppen sind Stdne aus den Mondvulkajven, Benzenberg, Bonn, 1834, 



