422 
during four hours. Their direction was very regular from 
north to south. From the beginning of the phenomenon there 
was not a space in the firmament equal in extent to three dia- 
meters of the moon which was not filled with bolides or falling 
stars. All the meteors left luminous traces, or phosphorescent 
bands, behind them, which lasted seven or eight seconds A Mr. 
Ellicott, an agent of the United States, thus describes the same 
phenomenon, as seen by him from the sea between Cape Flo- 
rida and the West-India Islands : — “ I was called up about 
three o’clock in the morning, to see the shooting stars, as they 
are called. The phenomenon was grand and awful. The whole 
heavens appeared as if illuminated by skyrockets, which dis- 
appeared only by the fight of the sun after daybreak. The 
meteors, which at any one instant of time appeared as numer- 
ous as the stars, flew in all possible directions, except from the 
earth, towards which they all inclined more or less ; and some 
of them descended perpendicularly over the vessel we were in, 
so that I was in constant expectation of their falling on us.” 
This particular display of falling stars seems to have been 
visible from the equator to Greenland in America, and was also 
observed at Weimar in Germany. 
On the 13th of November, 1833, another splendid shower 
of falling stars was observed over the whole of North and 
a considerable portion of South America, someot themeteois 
being of a very large size, — one described as greater than the 
full moon appears when in the horizon. Another, over the F alls 
of Niagara, remained for some time almost stationary in the 
zenith, emitting streams of fight. No wonder that many, call- 
ing to mind the vision of St. John the Divine, when u the siars 
fell unto the earth, even as a fig-tree casteth her untimely figs, 
when she is shaken of a mighty wind,” ielt awestruck^ and 
imagined that the day of wrath was come. “ I was suddenly 
awakened,” says a South Carolina planter, “ by the most dis- 
tressing cries that ever fell on my ears. Shrieks of horror and 
cries for mercy, I could hear from most of the negroes of three 
plantations, amounting in all to about six or eight hundred. 
While earnestly listening for the cause, I heard a faint voice 
near the door calling my name. I arose, and taking my sword, 
stood at the door. At this moment, I heard the same voice 
still beseeching me to rise, and saying, f 0 my God, the world 
is on fire.’ I then opened the door, and it is difficult to say 
which excited me most, — the awfulness of the scene or the 
distressed cries of the negroes. Upwards of one hundred lay 
prostrate on the ground, some speechless, and some with the 
bitterest cries, but with their hands raised, imploring God^to 
save the world and them. The scene was truly awful; ior 
