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cient histories. On the night when king Ibrahim Ben Ahmed 
died, in October, 902, there fell a heavy shower of shooting stars 
ff like a fiery rain,” on which account that year was called the 
year of stars. On the 19th of October, 1202, the stars were 
in motion all night, and “fell like locusts.” On the 21st of 
October, O.S., 1366, stars fell in such multitudes that they 
could not be counted. On the night between the 9th and 10th 
of November, 1787, many falling stars were observed at 
Manheim. Adopting the conjecture of Humboldt as to the 
gradual retardation of the November shower, others, more 
than twenty-three years since, ventured to predict that the 
great November shower of shooting stars and fire-balls inter- 
mixed, falling like flakes of snow, would not recur till between 
the 12th and 14th of November, 1867, taking for. granted 
that the great November star-showers occurred once in thirty- 
three years, when the earth intersected the hypothetical ring 
of minute planetary bodies. . _ , 
These showers are not equally visible from all parts ol the 
earth's surface. The shower of 1799 was only seen in America; 
those of 1831 and 1832 were only visible in Europe ; those 
of 1833 and 1834 only in the United States of America; and 
while a very splendid meteoric shower was seen in England m 
the year 1837, a most attentive observer at Braunsberg, in 
Prussia, on the same night, which was there uninterruptedly 
clear, only saw a few shooting stars, radiating from no parti- 
cular point of the heavens, between the hours of seven in the 
evening and sunrise the next morning. 
Though such occurrences as the great star- shower on the 1 Jtn 
of October, 1202, and 21st of October, 1366, seem to indicate 
a gradual retardation of the November shower, the relation o 
Theophanes, one of the Byzantine historians, that m November 
of the year 472 the sky appeared to be on fire over the city oi 
Constantinople with the coruscations of flying meteors, may 
make us pause before assuming the November shower to be 
the retardation of the October phenomenon. Again, m the 
year 1766, just before the fearful earthquake at Quito, 
Humboldt states that the volcano of Cayambe was so enveloped 
with falling stars for the space of an hour, that the inhabitants 
fancied the mountain on fire, and endeavoured to appease 
Heaven by religious processions. The year corresponds with 
the 33-year period; but as the earthquake occurred on the 
21st of October, the shower would seem to belong rather to 
the October manifestations of the 19th of October, 1202, ana 
21st of October, 1366. This should caution us not to general- 
ize too hastily on a few recurrences of similar dates. Agam, 
not to speak of the November showers for two years pre- 
