hower is supposed to be periodical, and has resulted in
a theory which becomes more complicated as the phenomenon is more
observed, and can never lead to any useful and practical results. To
cite the numerous instances of discrepant results, would only encumber
this brief notice with facts neither interesting to the general reader,
nor convincing to those who hold a contrary opinion. The author of these
pages has watched for many years, and, in view of all the facts, has
concluded that the doctrine of periodicity (as held by present
meteorologists) is not tenable. The celebrated August shower failed,
also, this year, at least in this place, as for four hours each night,
on the 9th, 10th, and 11th, there were fewer bright meteors than at the
close of July.

Professor Olmsted, who has paid considerable attention to the subject,
has indeed attempted to connect the great November shower with the
zodial light, which last he considers a nebulous body, of an elongated
form, whose external portions, at this time of the year, lie across the
earth's path. (See Silliman's Journal for 1837, vol. xxxiii. No. 2,
p. 392.) He even gives its periods, (about six months,) the aphelion of
the orbit being near the earth's orbit, and the perihelion within
Mercury's. In this way he attempts to explain both phenomena; but as the
zodial light is seen unchanged all the year round in tropical latitudes,
it is not the kind of body supposed by Olmsted, and the theory adds
nothing to our knowledge. Others have imagined rings of nebulous matter,
in which all the separate parts are moving in the same orbit around the
sun, with a retrograde motion, and this, with some modifications, is the
current theory of the day. The principal arguments rested on, for the
support of this view, are derived from the great shower of 1833, in
which a common radiant point was observed, and confirmed subsequently by
the radiant of other years, in the same month of November. As this point
is almost tangential to the earth's orbit at this season, the earth
meets the nebulous ring moving in the contrary direction, and thus
confers on these meteors the necessary velocity that is thought to be
demanded by observation.

Now, our theory gives a totally different explanation of the phenomenon.
We contend that a retrograde motion of such a nebulous mass, is
subversive of our whole theory; and we must be permitted to examine
certain points, hitherto disregarded by those entertaini