421 
ORDINARY MEETING, February 4, 1867. 
Captain E. Gardiner Fisiibourne, R.N., C.B., Hon. Treas., 
in the Chair. 
The minutes of the previous Meeting were read and confirmed. 
The following Paper was then read : — 
ON FALLING STABS AND METEORITES. By the 
Rev. Walter Mitchell, M.A., Vice-President , Viet. Inst. 
T HE term Meteor, taken in its literal signification as a 
thing in the air,” is sometimes used so as to include all 
atmospheric phenomena, such as clouds, rain, snow, rainbows, 
mock suns, &c . ; but in a more restricted sense it is applied to 
falling stars and flaming bodies seen passing through the 
atmosphere. A falling star is a phenomenon with which every- 
one must be familiar. Yet familiar as it may be, it is far more 
frequent than many would suppose. A star is seen to shoot 
across a portion of the heavens, vanishing as suddenly as it 
appeared, sometimes leaving a slight luminous track behind 
it, to mark for a few moments its course. Generally speaking, 
few of these falling stars are seen on the same night ; but there 
are occasions when they are so numerous as to fall for hours 
together in perfect showers, — so numerous as to be compared 
to a dense snow-storm where every flake is a burning star. 
Brilliant and startling as was the display last November, when 
between six and seven thousand falling stars are estimated to 
have pursued their fiery course in one hour, and at the time of 
the maximum display at the rate of one hundred per minute, 
this falls short of the awful majesty of some of the star-storms 
that have been observed. 
A remarkable display of falling stars, seen by Humboldt 
when travelling in South America, was thus described by 
him : — ct Towards the morning of the 13 th November, 1799, 
we witnessed a most extraordinary scene of shooting meteors. 
Thousands of bolides and falling stars succeeded each other 
