clouds which continued up to a late
hour, overspread the earth, preventing any further observation. In the
November of 1838, at the same date, the falling stars were abundant at
Vienna: and one of remarkable brilliancy and size, as large as the full
moon in the zenith, was seen on the 13th by M. Verusmor, off Cherburg,
passing in the direction of Cape La Hogue, a long, luminous train
marking its course through the sky. The same year, the non-commissioned
officers in the island of Ceylon were instructed to look out for the
falling stars. Only a few appeared at the usual time; but on the 5th of
December, from nine o'clock till midnight, the shower was incessant,
and the number defied all attempts at counting them.

[Illustration]

Professor Olmsted, an eminent man of science, himself an eye-witness of
the great meteoric shower on the American continent, after carefully
collecting and comparing facts, proposed the following theory: The
meteors of November 13th, 1833, emanated from a nebulous body which was
then pursuing its way along with the earth around the sun; that this
body continues to revolve around the sun in an elliptical orbit, but
little inclined to the plane of the ecliptic, and having its aphelion
near the orbit of the earth; and finally, that the body has a period of
nearly six months, and that its perihelion is a little within the orbit
of Mercury. The diagram represents the ellipse supposed to be described,
E being the orbit of the earth, M that of Mercury, and N that of the
assumed nebula, its aphelion distance being about 95 millions of miles,
and the perihelion 24 millions. Thus, when in aphelion, the body is
close to the orbit of the earth, and this occurring periodically, when
the earth is at the same time in that part of its orbit, nebulous
particles are attracted toward it by its gravity, and then, entering the
atmosphere, are consumed in it by their concurrent velocities, causing
the appearance of a meteoric shower. The parent body is inferred to be
nebular, because, though the meteors fall toward the earth with
prodigious velocity, few, if any, appear to have reached the surface.
They were stopped by the resistance of the air and dissipated in it,
whereas, if they had possessed any considerable quantity of matter, the
momentum would have been sufficient to have brought them down in some
instances to the earth. Arago has suggested a similar theory, that of a
stream or group of innumerable bodies,