he withering winter blast of the great
stream of the solar vortex. In this connection, we may also allude to
the appearance of the moon when totally eclipsed. Instead of
disappearing at these times, she sometimes shines bright enough to
reveal her smallest spots. This has been generally referred to the
refraction of the earth's atmosphere bending inwards the solar rays. May
it not be owing to the brilliancy of the solar corona, which, in 1842,
was described as so intense that the eye was scarcely able to support
it? This is a far more palpable cause for the production of this
phenomenon, but of which astronomers cannot avail themselves, as long as
they are uncertain of the origin of this corona.

SHOOTING STARS.

The continual influx of cosmical matter into the heart of the vortex in
ever-varying quantities, and speedily dispersed along the central plane,
according to its density, must necessarily give rise to another
phenomenon to which we have not yet alluded. Scarcely a night passes
without exhibiting this phenomena in some degree, and it is generally
supposed that the hourly average of shooting stars is from five to ten,
taking the whole year round. The matter composing these meteors we
regard as identical with that mass of diffused atoms which forms a
stratum conforming to the central plane of the vortex, and whose partial
resistance to the radial stream occasions that luminosity which we call
the zodial light. These atoms may coalesce into spherical aggregations,
either as elastic gas, or as planetary dust, and, passing outward on the
radial stream, will occasionally become involved in the vortex of our
own globe; and being drawn inwards by the polar current, and acted on by
the earth's gravity, be impelled with great velocity through the
rarefied air of the upper atmosphere. That meteors are more abundant
about the time of meridian passage of a vortex (or, perhaps, more
correctly speaking, from six to twelve hours afterwards, when the
current of restoration penetrates the atmosphere), well accords with the
author's observations. It is about this time that high winds may be
looked for, according to the theory; and it has ever been a popular
opinion, that these meteors are a sign of windy weather. Even in
Virgil's time, the same belief prevailed, as a passage in his Georgics
would seem to indicate.

"Sape etiam stellas, vento impendente, videbis
Praecipites coelo labi; noctisque per umbram
Flammaru