ART. IX.-Meteorological Journal, kept at Marietta, Ohio, for the year 1833, in Lat. 39° 25′ N., Lon. 4° 28′ W. of Washington City; by S. P. HILDRETH.

Mean temperature for the year 54.56; being two degrees greater than that of the year 1832-and is the regular mean for this climate. The fluctuations of the Barometer, have been small this year; the greatest range being only .90 of an inch. The lowest depression was on the 17th Dec., with the wind from the E. and snowing rapidly. The greatest elevation, was on the 31st of Oct., wind at the N.

The mean height for the year is 29.46. My Barometer is new, and I believe accurate.

Total amount of rain and melted snow, 40.37 inches, being eight inches less than that of the year 1832. Fair days, 222-cloudy days, 143, varying only six from that of last year. The mean temperature for the winter months is

26.20

spring months is

54.85

The winter being milder by two degrees than that of 1832; and the summer six degrees warmer. October was unusually cold, the thermometer being no less than nine degrees lower than that of April, when they are commonly of near the same temperature. It was probably owing to the early fall of snow in the Arctic and Rocky

Mountain regions, as wild geese were seen flying to the south as early as the 19th of the month. The winter thus far has been mild. No ice was formed in our rivers until the 29th Dec., when a little was seen floating in the Muskingum. The spring months were earlier than those of 1832, by about a week. Cultivated fruit trees brought forth abundantly, especially the apple, the crops of which were unusually fine, many thousand barrels having been sent to the market below.

The summer was mild and pleasant, and the crops of all kinds generally good. After September, the autumnal months were cold and very windy, blowing in strong gales from the western quarters for many days in succession. "Indian Summer," commonly a delightful season in the western states, barely made its appearance, before the setting in of hard frosts, destroyed the foliage of our forests, and put a stop to that slow and gradual change of color, which gives to our woodlands, those rich and varied tints, so much admired by the painter and the poet.

In November, occurred that beautiful meteoric display, of which a notice is subjoined. In December, there fell, within a few days, two feet of snow, which soon melted gradually away, so that at this time the earth is nearly bare. The whole year has been unusually healthy in this part of Ohio. Not a single death by cholera, that terrible scourge, which has visited and made sorrowful, so many places in the west, both above and below us, has occurred in Marietta. It may perhaps, be attributed to its naturally healthy location, to the wide, airy streets and commons; the cleanly and sober habits of the people, and to the great abundance of shade trees, which every where, deck our streets and door yards. It was observed, several years since, while the disease was yet confined to the eastern continent, that regions thickly covered with woods, and towns and villages in which grass plats and trees abounded, suffered much less, and in many instances not at all from the cholera. It may be philosophically accounted for, in the known property which the dense foliage of trees possesses, of decomposing the poison which generates miasmatic fevers, and with which the cholera was closely allied, from its prevailing mostly in districts subject to these diseases. Whatever may have been the cause, the inhabitants of Marietta, have great reason for gratitude and praise to that being who ruleth the destinies of man. Marietta, Ohio, Jan. 1, 1834.

METEORIC PHENOMENON.

On the morning of the 13th. of November, from midnight to near sunrise, a period of more than six hours, the whole horizon, and the heavens to an immense height, were filled with fiery meteors or "shooting stars," as far as the eye could reach. They appeared to take their course from a point a little south east of the zenith, to every quarter of the compass, sloping at an angle of thirty or forty degrees, generally towards the earth; some however took nearly a horizontal direction. They were of all sizes, from that of a small point to three times the diameter of the planet Venus, and leaving a train of light in their course like that of a rocket. The larger ones threw a glare of light equal to that of a smart flash of lightning across the horizon, and left a luminous train, generally of a greater width than the diameter of the meteor, continuing for several minutes after their extinction, resembling a shining serpentine cloud of the class called "cirrus ;" and retaining its brightness for many minutes, from three or four to fifteen; and appearing to curve and move some degrees upward, very slowly before they vanished. No noise or report could be heard from the largest, a proof of their great elevation although numbers were observed to scintillate and fly into numerous small sparks at the moment of extinction. The sky, at the time, was perfectly clear of clouds, with a brisk breeze from the S. W. The atmosphere had a yellowish tinge and was so very luminous as greatly to obscure the fixed stars. Fahrenheit's thermometer, stood at 36° and the barometer at 29.50 inches. The latter part of the previous night, it had rained profusely, and the twelfth, or day previous was fair and windy, bar. at 29-40 inches and ther. at 50° at noon. Meteors were falling like a shower of snow for a period of nearly six hours, or from twelve or one o'clock to past six A. M. Some few were seen as early as ten o'clock P. M. of the twelfth, from which time they gradually increased in numbers and in brilliancy until 4 o'clock at which period they were in the greatest abundance. A phenomenon so rare, so brilliant and so sublime, could not fail to strike with wonder and with awe, its numerous beholders. Many could not believe it to be a natural phenomenon depending on the regular laws of nature, but supposed it was a miraculous occurrence intended to warn the inhabitants of the earth of some great and impending calamity. The most striking and interesting part of the

display was the duration and singular shapes assumed by the luminous atmosphere after the explosion of the meteors; some appeared like a half circle, others like waves, or the undulating folds of a serpent occupying the space traversed by the meteor, and generally changing their shape and position, a little, during their continuance as if moved by the wind. Some of these luminous or phosphorescent clouds, occupied six or eight degrees in length and one or two in width, the color not fiery, but silvery, like moonlight on a thin transparent cloud. A very remarkable one was seen at about twenty minutes before six. It started from a point in the S. W. at an elevation of about 75° taking a N. W. course and exploded at 55° above the horizon, near to the right shoulder of the constellation of the "wagoner." It was three or four times the diameter of Venus, and left a luminous train occupying several degrees, in the shape of the human arm, half bent. It was distinctly seen for at least fifteen minutes. The larger meteors were more common from three to four o'clock, as I am informed by eye witnesses. I observed them myself, only from five to six o'clock, and until the morning light extinguished them, or rather I think they had nearly ceased at that time, as they were much less numerous at six o'clock, than at an hour or two earlier. From their great elevation, they must have been seen all over North America, and probably much farther. A gentleman who lives at Quincy, one hundred and sixty miles above the town of St. Louis, on the Mississippi, informed me, that he saw a few scattering meteors, between nine and ten o'clock, the evening of the twelfth, in E. and N. E. and as they were seen at about the same time at Marietta, and in New York, it is probable they commenced about that period and in that quarter of the heavens. Nearly all the observing spectators with whom I have conversed agree in this point, that the meteors appeared to start from a centre a little east of the zenith, taking a diverging course to every point in the compass; I saw none fall to the earth, or nearer, than to within ten or fifteen degrees of the horizon.

In the year 1799, and at nearly the same time in the year, viz. the twelfth, instead of the thirteenth of November, the same wonderful display of meteors was observed by Humboldt and Bonpland at Cumana, in central America. The description, as given by these celebrated travelers, cannot fail to be interesting. "Towards morning, a very extraordinary display of luminous meteors, was observed in the east by M. Bonpland, who had risen to enjoy the freshness of

the air in the gallery. Thousands of fire balls and falling stars succeeded each other during four hours, having a direction from north to south and filling a space of the sky extending from the true east, thirty degrees on either side. They rose above the horizon at E. N. E. and at E. described arcs of various sizes and fell towards the south, some attaining a height of forty degrees, and all exceeding twenty five or thirty. No trace of clouds was to be seen and a very light easterly wind blew, in the lower regions of the atmosphere. All the meteors left luminous trains, from five to ten degrees in length, the phosphorescence of which lasted seven or eight seconds. The fire balls seemed to explode, but the largest disappeared without scintillation, and many of the falling stars had a distinct nucleus, as large as the disk of Jupiter, from which sparks were emitted. The light occasioned by them was white; an effect which must be attributed to the absence of vapors. Stars of the first magnitude having within the tropics a much paler hue, at their rising, than in Europe. As the inhabitants of Cumana, leave their houses before four o'clock to attend the first morning mass, most of them were witnesses of this phenomenon, which gradually ceased soon after, although some were seen a quarter of an hour before sunrise." He found they had been seen by various individuals, in places very remote from each other; and on his return to Europe, was astonished to find that they had been seen there also. They were seen from a point near the equator in Brazil, and in Longitude 70°, to Latitude 64° N. in Greenland; and as far east as Longitude 9°, near Weimar in Germany. Calculating from these facts it is manifest, that the height of the meteors was at least one thousand four hundred and nineteen miles, and as near Weimar, they were seen in the S. and S. W. while at Cumana, they were seen in the E. and N. E. we must conclude that they fell into the sea, between Africa and South America, to the west of the Cape de Verd Islands. From the foregoing description, the meteoric display of 1799, was not so vast, nor so sublime and brilliant as that of 1833.