Although Halley pronounced the great fire-ball of 1686, whose motion was opposite to that of the earth in its orbit,* to be a cosmical body, Chadni, in 1794, first recognized, with ready acuteness of mind, the connection between fire-balls and the stones projected from the atmosphere, and the motions of the former bodies in space.**
[footnote] *'Philos. Transact.', vol. xxix., p. 161-163.
[footnote] **The first edition of Chlandni's important treatise, 'Ueber den Ursprung der von Pallas gefundenen und anderen Eisenmassen' (On the Origin of the masses of Iron found by Pallas, and other similar masses), appeared two months prior to the shower of stones at Siena, and two years before Lichtenberg stated, in the 'Güttingen Taschenbuch', that "stones reach our atmosphere from the remoter regions of space.' Comp., also, Olbers's letter to Benzenberg, 18th Nov., 1837, in Benzenberg's 'Treatise on Shooting Stars', p. 186.
A brilliant confirmation of the cosmical origin of these phenomena has been afforded by Denison Olmsted, at New Haven, Connecticut, who has shown on the concurrent authority of all eye-witnesses, that during the celebrated fall of shooting stars on the night between the 12th p 119 and 13th of November, 1833, the fire-balls and shooting stars all emerged from one and the same quarter of the heavens, namely, in the vicinity of the star 'gamma' in the constellation Leo, and did not deviate from this point, although the star changed its apparent height and azimuth during the time of the observation. Such an independence of the Earth's rotation shows that the luminous body must have reached our atmosphere from 'without.' According to Encke's computation* of the whole p 120 number of observations made in the United States of North America, between the thirty-fifth and the forty-second degrees of latitude, it would appear that all these meteors came from the same point of space in the direction in which the Earth was moving at the time.
[footnote] *Encke, in Poggend., 'Annalen', bd. xxxiii. (1834), s. 213. Arago, in the 'Annuaire' for 1836, p. 291. Two letters which I wrote to Benzenberg, May 19 and October 22, 1837, on the conjectural precession of the nodes in the orbit of periodical falls of shooting stars. (Benzenberg's 'Sternsch.', s. 207 and 209.) Olbers subsequently adopted this opinion of the gradual retardation of the November phenomenon. ('Astron. Nachr.', 1838, No. 372, s. 180.) If I may venture to combine two of the falls of shooting stars mentioned by the Arabian writers with the epochs found by Boguslawski for the fourteenth century, I obtain the following more or less accordant elements of the movements of the nodes: In Oct., 902, on the night in which King Ibrahim ben Ahmed died, there fell a heavy shower of shooting stars, "like a fiery rain;" and this year was, therefore, called the year of stars. (Conde, 'Hist. de la Domin.' de los Arabes', p. 346.) On the 19th of Oct., 1202, the stars were in motion all night. "They fell like locusts." ('Comptes Rendus', 1837, t. i., p. 294; and Fræhn, in the 'Bull. de l'Académie de St. Pétersbourg', t. iii., p. 308.) On the 21st Oct., O.S., 1366, "'die sequente post festum XI. millia Virginum ab hora matutina usque ad horam primam visæ sunt quasi stellæ de cælo cadere continuo, et in tanta multitudine, quod nemo narrare suf ficit.'" This remarkable notice, of which we shall speak more fully in the subsequent part of this work, was found by the younger Von Boguslawski, in Benesse (de Horowic) de Weitmil or Weithmül, 'Chronicon Ecclesiæ Pragensis', p. 389. This chronicle may also be found in the second part of 'Scriptores rerum Bohemicarum', by Pelzel and Dobrowsky, 1784. (Schum., 'Astr. Nachr.', Dec., 1839.) On the night between the 9th and 10th of November, 1787, many falling stars were observed at Manheim, Southern Germany, by Hemmer (Kämtz, 'Meteor.', th. iii., s. 237.) After midnight, on the 12th of November, 1799, occurred the extraordinary fall of stars at Cumana, which Bonpland and myself have described, and which was observed over a great part of the earth. ('Relat. Hist.', t. i., p. 519-527.) Between the 12th and 13th of November, 1822, shooting stars, intermingled with fire-balls, were seen in large numbers by Kloden, at Potsdam. (Gilbert's 'Ann.', bd. lxxii., s. 291.) On the 13th of November, 1831, at 4 o'clock in the morning, a great shower of falling stars was seen by Captain Bérard, on the Spanish coast, near Carthagena del Levante. ('Annuaire', 1836, p. 297.) In the night between the 12th and 13th of November, 1833, occurred the phenomenon so admirably described by Professor Olmsted, in North America. In the night of the 13-14th of November, 1834, a similar fall of shooting stars was seen in North America, although the numbers were not quite so considerable. (Poggend., 'Annalen', bd. xxxiv., s. 129.) On the 13th of November, 1835, a barn was set on fire by the fall of a sporadic fire-ball, at Belley, in the Department de l'Ain. ('Annuaire', 1836, p. 296.) In the year 1838, the stream showed itself most decidedly on the night of the 13-14th of November. ('Astron. Nachr.', 1838, No. 372.)
On the recurrence of falls of shooting stars in North America, in the month of November of the years 1834 and 1837, and in the analogous falls observed at Bremen in 1838, a like general parallelism of the orbits, and the same direction of the meteors from the constellation Leo, were again noticed. It has been supposed that a greater parallelism was observable in the direction of periodic falls of shooting stars than in those of sporadic occurrence; and it has further been remarked, that in the periodically-recurring falls in the month of August, as, for instance, in the year 1839, the meteors came principally from one point between Perseus and Taurus, toward the latter of which constellations in the Earth was then moving. This peculiarity of the phenomenon, manifested in the retrograde direction of the orbits in November and August, should be thoroughly investigated by accurate observations, in order that it may either be fully confirmed or refuted.
The heights of shooting stars, that is to say, the heights of the points at which they begin and cease to be visible, vary exceedingly, fluctuating between 16 and 140 miles. This important result, and the enormous velocity of these problematical asteroids, were first ascertained by Benzenberg and Brandes, by simultaneous observations and determinations of parallax at the extremities of a base line of 49,020 feet in length.*
[footnote] *I am well aware that, among the 62 shooting stars simultaneously observed in Silesia, in 1823, at the suggestion of Professor Brandes some appeared to have an elevation of 183 to 240, or even 400 miles. (Brandes, 'Unterhaltungen für Freunde der Astronomie und Physik', heft i., s. 48. Instructive Narratives for the Lovers of Astronomy and Physics.) But Olbers considered that all determinations for elevations beyond 120 miles must be doubtful, owing to the smallness of the parallax.
The relative velocity of motion is from 18 to 36 miles in a second, and consequently equal to planetary velocity. This planetary velocity,* as well as the direction of the orbits p 121 of fire-balls and shooting stars, which has frequently been observed to be opposite to that of the Earth, may be considered as conclusive arguments against the hypothesis that aërolites derive their origin from the so-called active 'lunar volcanoes.'
[footnote] *The planetary velocity of translation, the movement in the orbit, is in Mercury 26.4, in Venus 19.2, and in the Earth 16.4 miles in a second.