Abstract
II. BRANDES, one of the two German students spoken of, was riding in an open post-waggon on the night of Dec. 6, 1798, and saw and counted hundreds of these shooting-stars or meteors. At times they came as fast as six or seven a minute. These meteors which Brandes saw that night we know now were bits from Biela's comet. In November 1833 occurred the famous star-shower, which some of you saw. The facts of that shower gave to two New Haven men, Profs. Twining and Olmsted, the clue to the true theory of the shooting-stars. From that date shooting-stars have belonged to astronomy. The November meteors were admitted a new constituent of the solar system. Three years later, M. Quetelet, of Brussels, found that shooting-stars are to be seen in unusual numbers about August 10 of each year. A few months afterwards Mr. Herrick made independently the same discovery; but he also told us of star-showers in April and January. What Brandes had seen in December 1798 led Mr. Herrick; moreover, to expect a like shower in other Decembers, and he asked that shooting-stars be looked for on December 6 and 7, 1838. This shrewd guess was justified, for on the evenings of those days hundreds of these meteors were seen in America, in Europe, and in Asia by persons thus induced to look for them. These shooting-stars also had once been parts of Biela's comet, though this fact was not dreamed of at that time.
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The Story of Biela's Comet 1 . Nature 33, 418–421 (1886). https://doi.org/10.1038/033418e0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/033418e0