The stars fell on this occasion,
like flakes of snow, and it was calculated that at least 240,000 had fallen
during a period of nine hours. Palmer, of New Haven, Connecticut, was led,
in consequence of this splendid phenomenon, to the recollection of the fall
of meteoric stones in 1799, first described by Ellicot and myself,* and
which, by
p 125
a comparison of the facts I had adduced, showed that the phenomenon had been
simultaneously seen in the New Continent, from the equator to New Herrnhut
in Greenland (65 degrees 14' north latitude), and between 46 degrees and 82
degrees longitude.
[footnote] *Humb., 'Rel. Hist.', t. i., p. 519-527. Ellicot in the
'Transactions of the American Society', 1804, vol. vi., . 29. Arago makes
the following observations in reference to the November phenomena: "We thus
become more and more confirmed in the belief that there exists a zone
composed of millions of small bodies, whose orbits cut the plane of the
ecliptic at about the point which out Earth annually occupies between the
11th and 13th of November. It is a new planetary world beginning to be
revealed to us." ('Annuaire', 1836, p. 296.)
The identity of the epochs was recognized with astonishment. The stream
which had been seen from Jamaica to Boston (40 degrees 21' north latitude)
to traverse the whole vault of heaven on the 12th and 13th of November,
1833, was again observed in the United States in 1834, on the night between
the 13th and 14th of November, although on this latter occasion it showed
itself with somewhat less intensity.
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