Nr. 8. 
EIGHTH NUMBER FOR THE WINTER OF 1833, 
Price 50 Cents each number, or ONE Dollar per annum. 
ATLANTIC JOURNAL 
AND 
A QUARTERLY JOURNAL OP 
HISTORICAL AND NATURAL SCIENCES, USEFUL KNOWLEDGE, &c. 
WITH FIGURES. 
. BY C. S. RAFINESQUE, V 
Professor of Historical and Natural Sciences, Member of many learned Socie- 
ties in America and Europe, Author of many Works* &e. &c. 
Knowledge is the mental food of mcim 
VOL. I. 
Philadelphia, Winter of 1833. 
No. 8. 
154. METEOROLOGY, 
The Luminous Meteors of 1833. 
By Q. S . Rajinesque. 
On the night of thesis to 13 
November, 1 833, a wonderful 
display of meteors was visible 
all over N. America, which has 
excited the curiosity of the 
learned and unlearned, alarmed 
the superstitious, and baffled 
their inquiries. 
Before any correct explana- 
tion is attempted, it would be 
needful to wait for the accounts 
from all parts of the world; 
this lias preveuted me from ven- 
turing to write on the subject 
in the newspapers. 
We know already that it was 
visible from Canada to Jamai- 
ca and California; but attended 
with different circumstances, 
although simultaneous every 
where. It may have been visi- 
ble also in Europe and in Chi- 
na, or at least, wherever it was 
night. 
Shooting stars and flying 
stars, are a common phenome- 
non at night, particularly in 
volcanic countries ; they are 
probably as common in the day 
time, but unseen. The meteors 
of November (which have again 
appeared partly in some nights 
of Nov. and Bee.) were not the 
same thing, being compared to 
a shower of fire-works, falling 
rockets, and luminous snakes; 
clouds, suns and streams of 
fire, diverging from a circle in 
the Atlantic Ocean towards the 
horizon all around on our 
Atlantic shores; and in Cali- 
fornia as directed towards the 
North. 
It will he needful for whoever 
will attempt a rational expla- 
nation of this phenomenon, to 
have before him the accounts 
from all parts of the world, and 
to compare them carefully as to 
time, directions, and appear- 
ances. If unseen where it was 
daylight, it does not follow that 
the meteors did not exist there 
also, but they may have been 
hidden by the solar light 
