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The greatest velocity was thirty-six miles a second, or double that of the earth in its orbit; but a rate vastly greater has been registered, equal to eleven times that of the earth, and to seven and a half times that of Mercury, the fastest galloper of the planets; and much greater altitudes are on record. Commonly, the time of visibility involves only a few seconds; but the luminous trains of the globular class have been seen from several minutes to half an hour after the disappearance of the brilliant balls, while examples of the stationary amorphous kind have remained in sight much longer.

3. Their direction is in general more or less oblique, but sometimes it seems horizontal; and the extraordinary fact is mentioned in one instance of a shooting star moving away from the earth, or up ward, as if caught in the act of deserting celestial space, and dragged back into its depths by an attraction superior to terrestrial gravitation. It is usually the case that these objects move from northeast to southwest, which is contrary to the direction of the earth in its orbit. This seems to have an important bearing upon their physical history.

4. While limited to no particular part of the earth, state of the weather, or season of the year, they are most numerously seen in tropical localities, under tranquil conditions of the atmosphere, toward the close of summer and the commencement of autumn, especially about the middle of August and November. The displays have been gorgeous and terrific, as seen in America, when at the same time nothing remarkable has been observed in European skies; while cotemporaneously, on other occasions, the revelation has been splendid in the atmosphere of opposite hemispheres. In 1837 a vast number appeared in Europe; and on the same day, on the other side of the globe, they were witnessed from the French ship " Bonite."

5. Commonly the sight is the only sense addressed. "There is no speech nor language: their voice is not heard." But VOL. XI.-2

occasionally hissing noises and loud detonations have been distinctly audible, owing, doubtless, to greater contiguity. Windows and doors have rattled, and even buildings have trembled at the violence of the explosions. The meteor which passed over in Italy, in 1676, disappeared to seaward in the direction of Corsica,

with a report which was heard at Leghorn. A similar visitor, witnessed all over England in 1718, passed from northeast to southwest, and the sound of an explosion was heard through Devon and Cornwall, and along the opposite coast of Brittany. This was a very brilliant object. Sir Hans Sloane, being abroad in the streets of London at the time of its appearancea quarter past eight at night-found his path suddenly and intensely illumined. He at first thought it proceeded from a discharge of rockets; but, looking up, he saw an orb of fire traveling with immense velocity aloft, so vividly bright that several times he was compelled to turn away his eyes from it. The stars disappeared; the moon-nine days old, and high near the meridian, the sky being very clear-was so effaced as to be scarcely visible.

6. On the same night the appearance of falling stars is ordinarily limited to two or three examples, and weeks may pass away without a single one being observed; but at times the number is prodigious, as if the whole celestial host had been loosened from the concave to rush in lawless flight toward the earth, resembling a perfect shower of fiery snow. Mediæval chronicles contain records of such events, once considered as marvels invented by the chroniclers, but now admitted to the class of facts, since modern experience is familiar with precisely similar displays. Some of these relations are worthy of notice.

Arabian annalists state that on the night of the death of King Ibrahim ben Ahmed, referring to the month of October, in the year 902 of our era, an infinite number of falling stars were seen spreading themselves like rain over the heavens from right to left; and this year was afterward called "the year of stars." In some annals of Cairo, it is related that "in this year, (1029 of our era,) in the month Redjeb, (August,) many stars passed, with a great noise and brilliant light." In another place the document states that in the year 599, on Saturday night, in

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the last Moharrem, (1202 of our era, and on the 19th of October,) the stars appeared like waves upon the sky, toward the east and west; they flew about like grasshoppers, and were dispersed from left to right; the people were terror-struck." Mohammed, in a chapter of the Koran, alludes to the falling stars as the visible flame which the angels, guarding the constellations, hurl at the evil spirits who come too near. Hence a modern poet makes his peri fly through space

"Rapidly as comets run

To th' embraces of the sun;
Fleeter than the starry brands
Flung at night from angel hands,
At those dark and daring sprites

"about three o'clock in the morning to see the shooting stars, as they are called. The phenomenon was grand and awful. The whole heavens appeared as if illuminated with sky-rockets, which disappeared only by the light of the sun toward daybreak. The meteors, which at any one instant of time appeared as numerous as the stars, flew in all possible directions, except from the earth, toward which they all inclined, more or less; and some of them descended perpendicularly over the vessel we were in, so that I was in constant expectation of their falling on us." The same appearances were seen on the same night by the Capuchin missionary at San Fernando, a village in the Ilanos of Venezuela; by the Franciscan monks stationed near the cataracts of the Orinoco; at Marca, on the banks of the Rio Negro; at Quito, Cumana, and Santa Fé de Bogota; in French Guiana and Western Brazil; at Nain and Hoffenthal, in Lab

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Who would climb th' empyreal heights." On the night of April 25, 1095, both in France and England, the stars were seen "falling like a shower of rain from heaven upon the earth." The Chronicle of Rheims describes them as driven like dust before the wind; and great commotions in Christ-rador; and even at Weimar, Halle, and endom were foreboded in consequence by the members of the Council of Clermont.

To come down to modern times. The last century was drawing to a close, when a grand meteoric shower was seen over a very considerable portion of the area of the globe. It became conspicuous toward midnight on the 12th of November, 1799, and rapidly waxed terrible, continuing for several hours. To the Moravian missionaries in Greenland, who witnessed the scene, the contrast was of the strangest description a landscape of unvarying ice and snow around them, and the semblance of the heavens on fire above; for glowing points and masses, thick as hail, filled the firmament, as if some vast magazine of combustible materials had exploded in the far-off depths of space. Humboldt and Bonpland observed the spectacle on the coast of Mexico. The former remarks "Thousands of bolides and falling stars succeeded each other during four hours. Their direction was very regular from north to south. From the beginning of the phenomenon there was not a space in the firmament equal in extent to three diameters of the moon which was not filled every instant with them. All the meteors left luminous traces or phosphorescent bands behind them, which lasted seven or eight seconds." Mr. Ellicott, at sea, off Cape Florida, was another spec"I was called up," he states,

tator.

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Carlsruhe, in Germany, shooting stars were numerous. The area of visibility embraced 64° of latitude, and 94° of longitude.

Passing by several meteoric showers, more or less remarkable, we come to the most stupendous hitherto witnessed, that of the 13th of November, 1833; which, being the third in successive years, all occurring in the same month, and on the same day of the month, seemed to intimate periodicity, and originated the title of the November meteors. The night of the 12th was singularly fine. Not a cloud obscured the sky. Toward midnight the spectacle commenced, and was at its height between four and six o'clock in the morning. It was seen all over the United States, from the Canadian lakes to the West Indies, and from about longitude 610 in the Atlantic Ocean, to that of 1000 in the center of Mexico. It included the three classes of forms previously mentioned-phosphoric lines, large fire-balls, and luminous bodies of irregular shape. One of the latter, observed in the State of Ohio, resembled a brilliant pruning-hook, apparently about twenty feet long by eighteen inches broad. It was distinctly visible in the northeast more than an hour, and gradually declined toward the horizon till it disappeared. Another of tabular contour, appeared near the zenith, over the Falls of Niagara, and remained stationary for a considerable time, emitting large streams of light. The

roar of the cataract, the wild dash and incessant plunging of the waters below it, with the fiery storm overhead, combined to form a scene of unequaled sublimity. Some persons died of fright. Many thought that the last great day had come. In the slave states, the terror of the negroes was extreme. "I was suddenly awakened," says a planter in South Carolina, "by the most distressing cries that ever fell on my ears. Shrieks of horror and cries for mercy I could hear from most of the negroes of three plantations, amounting to from six to eight hundred. While earnestly listening for the cause, I heard a faint voice near the door calling my name. I arose, and, taking my sword, stood at the door. At this moment I heard the same voice still beseeching me to rise, and saying, ‘O, master! the world is on fire!' I then opened the door, and it is difficult to say which excited me most, the awfulness of the scene, or the distressed shrieks of the negroes. Upward of one hundred lay prostrate on the ground -some speechless, and some with the bitterest cries, but most with their hands raised, imploring God to save the world and them. The scene was truly awful; for never did the rain fall much thicker than the meteors fell toward the earth. East, west, north, and south, it was the same." An observer at Boston compared them, when at the maximum, to half the number of flakes seen in the air during an ordinary snow-storm. When they became less dense, so as to admit of being individualized, he counted six hundred and fifty in fifteen minutes, in a vertical zone, which did not include a tenth part of the visible horizon.

Some leading features of this magnificent spectacle, as noted by intelligent eyewitnesses, may be concisely stated. First. The meteors had their origin beyond the limits of our atmosphere. They all, without exception, moved in lines which converged in one and the same point of the heavens. But their course commenced at different distances from it, while around the point itself there was a circular space of several degrees in which none appeared. The position of this radiating point, with reference to the stars, was near y in the constellation Leo. It was stationary among the stars during the whole period of observation, or, in other words, instead of accompanying the earth in its diurnal rota

tion eastward, it attended the stars in their apparent movement westward. Thus the common focus from which the meteors seemed to emanate was clearly in the regions of space exterior to our atmosphere. Secondly. The height of the place whence they proceeded, though not accurately determined, must have been several thousand miles above the surface of the earth. This was inferred from observations of parallax. Thirdly. The meteors did not fall by the force of gravity alone, for the velocity observed was estimated to be much greater than could possibly result from the law of gravitation. Fourthly. They consisted of combustible matter, took fire, and were consumed in traversing the atmosphere. They were not luminous in their original situations in space, otherwise the body would have been seen from which they emanated. Combustion ensued upon reaching the atmosphere, owing to the heat evolved by the sudden and powerful com pression of the air consequent on their tremendous velocity; and the combustion was complete, since no particles, notwithstanding the momentum, made their way to the surface of the earth. Fifthly. Some of the meteors were evidently bodies of considerable size. Several fire-balls were observed apparently as large as the full moon. Dr. Smith, of North Carolina, who was traveling all night on professional business, thus describes one: "In size it appeared somewhat larger than the full moon rising. I was startled by the splendid light in which the surrounding scene was exhibited, rendering even small objects quite visible; but I heard no noise, although every sense seemed to be suddenly aroused, in sympathy with the violent impression on the sight." Sixthly. The large meteors were still high in the atmosphere when they exploded, or resolved themselves into smoke, for evidently the same objects were observed from far distant points; and while the explosions were seen, no report of any kind reached the ear.

While the eye was alone appealed to upon this occasion, the ear, as before remarked, has been addressed; and the sense of touch has taken cognizance of solid bodies which have fallen from surrounding space. But these "bits of stars," with the hypotheses proposed to explain the entire phenomena, must be reserved for future notice.

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MONG the most remarkable natural | two inches in height, is almost as wide as

A curiosities of the age is the Bearded he is long, and weighs ninety-six pounds.

Boy, who has recently been exhibited to crowds of wondering spectators in this city. The portrait of this singular freak of nature was taken by daguerreotype in this city, and copied by our engraver, and is an excellent likeness. He is but three years and six months old, as proved by well-attested documents, from high official sources in Prussia, the boy's native country.

His head, above the eyes, is rather large, and is thickly covered with a very stout growth of wiry black hair, which appears like that of a man of thirty. His upper lip is covered with a downy mustache, a considerable beard is on his cheeks and chin, and his back and chest are covered with a perfect swamp of hair from half an inch to an inch and a half in length, which is smooth and silky. He measures thirty

He has a very black but pleasant eye: a dark, full, childish face, but the expression is old and calm. His abdomen is enormously developed, and he drinks very copiously of water. He appears to have good sense, but not to be precocious in mental development.

He was born in the town of Culm, in Prussia, September 24th, 1853, of parents having no peculiarities, and whose six older children have nothing to distinguish them in appearance. The press of Berlin and other continental cities published long accounts of him, and the scientific and curious from all parts of Prussia thronged to Culm to see him.

We understand that after leaving this city, those who have him in charge will exhibit him in different parts of the country.

THE SMALL TRADES OF NAPLES.

THE famous market of Santa

THE

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Lucia is set, like a many-colored bit of enamel, in the midst of the silver horn of Naples. It draws itself out, along the very verge of the bay; just lifted above the break of the gentle swell, but catching every fresh breath of the sea, and every ripple, sob, and murmur of the waves. Here are displayed all those differing shades of character which go to make up the brilliant mosaic of Southern life, and here flutter every cut and color of national costume. You had better resort thither very early in the morning, before man grows drowsy, and before Nature seems to swoon away, in faint and dreamy luxury, under the resistless spell of the midday sun.

"Bono!" we are in good time this morning; so early that the coffee-seller is making his first round; but not too early for that portly brother of the Order of Sant' Antonio to be out in his white serge gown, ringing his obtrusive little bell to warn the votaries of the Romish Church that they had better not eat or drink, buy or sell, until the merchandise of the day be blessed, and the monkish fraternities receive their due. There is something ringing on our memory that sounds strangely opposite to this scene of the bell and the blessing; but let us quote the significant words with solemn reverence: "And he caused all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads; and that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name."

Poor Andrea looks chafed, though he strives to preserve a smooth and placid brow; for he knows well, by many a dayly calculation, that the fee for St. Anthony's blessing sorely infringes upon the little earnings of the day, swallowing up the profits of many a cup of smoking coffee, and leading him into many crooked devices in order to elude the white brother with the blue and red cross on his breast; while these palpable evasions make him feel very uncomfortable at the sight of a

THE BELL AND THE BLESSING.

confessional. However, on this bright morning he encounters the stout brother in a point-blank way, which admits of no doubting; so he pulls off his broad straw hat, and stands reverently by, while St. Anthony's deputy mutters his Latin incantation over the little portable stove, with its boiling coffee and its tray of small cups.

Shortly after this sacerdotal mockery, he may be seen carrying his small establishment to the foot of the turreted gateway which spans the entrance to a meanlooking court. A little lattice opens high up in the old building. A pale and worn man appears, glances rapidly up and down the passage, and, seeing that the way is clear, lowers a little tray carefully balanced by strings, bearing an empty cup and a small coin. Andrea silently takes the money, exchanges the empty cup for a full one, and, without a word, moves on. The pale man at the window carefully draws up the precious drink, closes his lattice, and, raking out his hot chestnuts from the wood ashes of a small chafing-dish, pro

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