METEORIC ASTRONOMY:
A TREATISE
ON
SHOOTING-STARS, FIRE-BALLS,
AND
AEROLITES.
BY
DANIEL KIRKWOOD, LL.D.
PROFESSOR OF MATHEMATICS IN WASHINGTON AND JEFFERSON COLLEGE.
PHILADELPHIA:
J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO.
1867.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1867, by
DANIEL KIRKWOOD, LL.D.,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for theWestern District of Pennsylvania.
PREFACE.
Aristotle and other ancient writers regarded comets asmeteors generated in the atmosphere. This opinion wasgenerally accepted, even by the learned, until the observationsof Tycho, near the close of the sixteenth century,showed those mysterious objects to be more distant thanthe moon, thus raising them to the dignity of celestialbodies. An achievement somewhat similar, and certainlyno less interesting, was reserved for the astronomers of thenineteenth century. This was the great discovery thatshooting-stars, fire-balls, and meteoric stones, are, likecomets, cosmical bodies moving in conic sections about thesun. Dr. Halley was the first to foretell the return of acomet, and the year 1759 will ever be known in history asthat which witnessed the fulfillment of his prophecy. Butin the department of meteoric astronomy, a similar honormust now be awarded to the late Dr. Olbers. Soon afterthe great star-shower of 1833 he inferred from a comparisonof recorded facts that the November display attains a maximumat intervals of thirty-three or thirty-four years. Heaccordingly designated 1866 or 1867 as the time of itsprobable return; and the night of November 13th of theformer year must always be memorable as affording thefirst verification of his prediction. On that night severalthousand meteors were observed in one hour from a singlestation. This remarkable display, together with the factthat another still more brilliant is looked for in November,1867, has given meteoric astronomy a more than ordinarydegree of interest in the public mind. To gratify, in someivmeasure, the curiosity which has been awakened, by presentingin a popular form the principal results of observationand study in this new field of research, is the maindesign of the following work.
The first two chapters contain a popular view of what isknown in regard to the star-showers of August and November,and also of some other epochs. The third is a description,in chronological order, of the most important falls ofmeteoric stones, together with the phenomena attendingtheir descent. The fourth and following chapters to theeleventh inclusive, di