individual states that his
thermometer, which had been at 80 deg. Fahr. for four days preceding, fell
to 56 deg., and, at the same time, the wind changed from the south to the
northwest, from whence it blew with great violence for three days
without intermission. The Capuchin missionary at San Fernando, a village
amid the savannahs of the province of Varinas, and the Franciscan monks
stationed near the entrance of the Oronoco, also observed this shower of
asteroids, which appears to have been visible, more or less, over an
area of several thousand miles, from Greenland to the equator, and from
the lonely deserts of South America to Weimar in Germany. About thirty
years previous, at the city of Quito, a similar event occurred. So great
a number of falling stars were seen in a part of the sky above the
volcano of Cayambaro, that the mountain itself was thought at first to
be on fire. The sight lasted more than an hour. The people assembled in
the plain of Exida, where a magnificent view presented itself of the
highest summits of the Cordilleras. A procession was already on the
point of setting out from the convent of Saint Francis, when it was
perceived that the blaze on the horizon was caused by fiery meteors,
which ran along the sky in all directions, at the altitude of twelve or
thirteen degrees. In Canada, in the years 1814 and 1819, the stellar
showers were noticed, and in the autumn of 1818 on the North Sea, when,
in the language of one of the observers, the surrounding atmosphere
seemed enveloped in one expansive ocean of fire, exhibiting the
appearance of another Moscow in flames. In the former cases, a residiuum
of dust was deposited upon the surface of the waters, on the roofs of
buildings, and on other objects. The deposition of particles of matter
of a ruddy color has frequently followed the descent of aerolites--the
origin of the popular stories of the sky having rained blood. The next
exhibition upon a great scale of the falling stars occurred on the 13th
of November, 1831, and was seen off the coasts of Spain and in the Ohio
country. This was followed by another in the ensuing year at exactly the
same time. Captain Hammond, then in the Red Sea, off Mocha, in the ship
Restitution, gives the following account of it; "From one o'clock A.M.
till after daylight, there was a very unusual phenomenon in the heavens.
It appeared like meteors bursting in every direction. The sky at the
time was clear, and the stars and