visible in Labrador and in Florida, would have been seen at intermediate places but for the clouds. At Salem and New Haven it was cloudy on that morning. XII. A. D. 1832. On the morning of Nov. 13th, A. D., 1832, unusual numbers of shooting stars were seen throughout Europe. Descriptions of the display were given at once in many of the newspapers and scientific journals. The most important of these were collected and published by Prof. Nöggerath, of Bonn," and Prof. Gautier, of Geneva." The names of the places where the shower was said to have been witnessed, together with some expressions indicating its intensity, will enable one to form a fair idea of the character of the display. The places farthest east are mentioned first. 18 16 14 18 In the island of Mauritius," 13 the number of the meteors was so great that it was impossible to count them." At Orenberg," north of the Caspian Sea, "the sky was filled with shooting stars." At Mocha," in Arabia, "it appeared like meteors bursting in every direction." At Sudscha, in Russia, "several hundred meteors were seen between 5 and 8 o'clock, so that while a person turned to look at one, others would appear at the side, and behind him," and yet "sometimes minutes passed without one being seen.' They were seen at Kursk," Ruiljsk," Odessa,' St. Petersburg," Riga, Warsaw," and Berlin." At Suczawa," in the Bukowina, "the shooting stars fell so fast as to be compared to an actual rain of fire." It was reported as witnessed in various places in Switzerland; at Frankfort," Stuttgart,20 and Carlsruhe, in South Germany; at Brussels and Liege, in Belgium; and near the lower Rhine at Treves," Cleves," Düren,' Aix la Chapelle," Lennep," Bonn," and Cologne." At SalzUffeln, in Westphalia, "there were often three or four at once in the sky." At Düsseldorf," Mr. Custodis counted 267 meteors between 4 and 7 o'clock. Mr. Le Verrier saw them" and says, "it would have taken several hours to count those visible at one instant, supposing them fixed." (!!!) At Grenoble," an observer estimated that he saw at least 60 in 25 minutes. At Limoges," workmen were terribly frightened by the meteors. Near "Schweigger's Journal für Chemie und Physik, lxvi, 328-343, and lxvii, 263. Bibliothèque Universelle de Genève, 1833, li, 189-207. This article I have not seen. 12 13 20 Comptes Rendus, v, 121. 15 This Journal, xxvi, 136. 16 Moskauer Wochenzeitung; quoted in 17 19 20 22 Comptes Rendus, ix, 808. 24 14 Astron. Nachrichten, xiii, 241. Pogg. Annalen, xxix, 448. 20 Comptes Rendus, v, 562. I take it for granted that the date is in error one day. Beverly," in England, "there was hardly a minute during the night without a shooting star, and often 20 were seen at once.' At other places in the north of England, "they fell in immense numbers." At Malvern," 48 were counted in 5 minutes. At York," 25 were counted during the first half hour of the exhibition. Prof. Schaeffer," on shipboard off Pernambuco (W. lon. 35°), entered upon his diary that numerous meteors were seen on that night. His account, however, implies that the display was not remarkable. Capt. Briggs," in N. lat. 43° and W. lon. 40°, saw them quite numerously; but adds, "toward morning only a few in an hour were seen.' The shower was not apparently observed in the United States. And yet it was not cloudy, for the day fell in the middle of a period of very fair weather. I am indebted to Prof. Whitney and Mr. J. S. Fisk for extracts from the meteorological records preserved at Washington and Albany. At 39 of the 41 U. S. military posts it was fair weather on the 12th of November, and at 30 of them it was fair on the 13th. Seven of the remaining eleven were in the two States, Maine and Louisiana. At only two of thirty-nine academies in N. Y. State was it cloudy on the afternoon of the 12th, and at only four was it cloudy on the forenoon of the 13th. In all these 80 meteorological journals not one word is said of unusual numbers of shooting stars on that night. When, two years later, the subject of the annual return of the meteors was so fully discussed, no one remembered to have seen, or heard of them, here in 1832. It is incredible that the meteors could have been as numerous in America as in Europe, and have thus escaped observation. It is fair to conclude that the shower as a very unusual display ended soon after daybreak in Western Europe, or soon after two o'clock in the Atlantic States. XIII. A. D. 1833. The much more remarkable shower of Nov. 13th, 1833, has been so fully described by Prof. Olmsted," and Prof. Twining," that the details need not be repeated. It extended, at least, from Cuba to Greenland, and from W. lon. 61° to W. lon. 100°, and how much farther in each direction is unknown. The mate of a vessel then in W. lon. 61°, N. lat. 36°, reports that the meteors were comparatively few. None were observed by the officers of two vessels, one in W. lon. 41°, N. lat. 2°, the other in W. lon. 20°, N. lat. 51°, though both reported clear skies." It is not 25 Quetelet's Corr. Math. et Phys., ix, 453. 36 Phil. Mag. [3]. iii, 87; quoted in Pogg. Annal., xxix, 448. I suppose the date assigned to be one week in error. "York Herald, quoted in this Journal, xxvi, 136. 28 This Journal, xxxiii, 182. This Journal, xxv, 363, and xxvi, 132. 29 lbid., xxvi, 349. Ibid., xxvi, 820. certain what trust is to be given to this evidence, negative at the best. Many vessels on the eastern Atlantic had cloudy skies." In Europe it seems to have been overcast, though how generally I have no means of learning. At London, it was lightly overcast on the 13th. At Cambridge, Greenwich, and Königsberg, no astronomical observations appear to have been made from 10 o'clock, P. M., of the 12th, until the evening of the 13th. At Geneva, it was cloudy and snowing both days, while at Great St. Bernard there were broken clouds." That no place on the eastern continent, where there were civilized men, had clear skies, seems incredible. In view of the numerous notices of the far less brilliant display of the preceding year, it would seem also certain that if a shower had been seen, we should have descriptions of it. Capt. Briggs says that it was clear at Canton, in China, and that there could have been no extraordinary display there." The display began here about midnight, but, judging from the tenor of the conflicting accounts, it appears not to have been very extraordinary until between 2 and 3 o'clock, New Haven time. This was after sunrise in Europe. I presume that a moderate display would have been visible there late in the morning, if the skies had been clear." 32 Ibid., xxv, 399. This Journal, xxvi, 349. 33 Bibliothèque Univ. de Genève for 1833. If we knew the true dates, perhaps these showers might be added to the list. A. D. 1199. "At the beginning of the year [A. H. 599, which began Oct 22d], the, stars were seen coursing through the heavens....." Abd-allatif, Relation de Egypte. See this Journal, xl, 355. "Anno Domini MCCCIC. Eclipsis solis facta est secundo Calend. Octobris. Stellae quoque instar ignis de caelo cadentes in plerisque Italiae locis visae sunt." Annales Forolivienses: Muratori, Rer. It. Ser., xxii, 200. A. D. 1766. Humboldt says (Pers. Narr., iii, 333,) that the older inhabitants of Cumana remembered that the great earthquakes of 1766 were preceded by displays like that of 1799. These earthquakes began Oct. 21st, 1766, and recurred at intervals through a whole year. Again he says (p. 346) that such phenomena were witnessed about thirty years before 1799 at Quito. So great was the number of shooting stars that the mountain seemed to be in flames. [To be continued.] ART. XXXVII.-Note on the Product of the Reaction between the Monosulphid of Potassium and the Bromid of Ethylene, and on several compounds derived from it;1 by J. M. CRAFTS. WHEN an alcoholic solution of monosulphid of potassium is mixed with the chlorid of ethylene, no reaction takes place immediately, but the mixture, after remaining exposed to the air several days, deposits a precipitate, whose composition is expressed by the empyrical formula, C,H,S. When higher sulphids of potassium are employed, compounds containing more sulphur than the preceding are still more readily obtained. These bodies, discovered by Löwig and Weidmann and described by them as sulphids of ethylene, can not be distilled, but are decomposed by heat into various products, of which the principal is a sulphuretted oil, whose composition has not been determined. (Vide Gmelin, vol. iv.) No direct combinations of these sulphids with other bodies have been obtained, and they must be considered as among those of the non-nitrogenous organic compounds, whose chemical character and properties are the least accurately known. It was with a view to studying the properties of the monosulphid of ethylene, and particularly the action of chlorine and bromine upon it, that I attempted to prepare that body by means of the monosulphid of potassium and the bromid of ethy lene, instead of with the chlorid, because, in similar double decompositions, bromine in combination with organic radicals is more easily replaced by other elements or radicals than chlorine. The analogy was found to hold good in the present instance in so far that the bromid of ethylene is more easily attacked than the chlorid, but the products of this reaction differ entirely from those obtained by Löwig and Weidmann. This remarkable fact probably finds its explanation in the supposition of those chemists, that the sulphid of ethylene obtained by them was not the direct product of a double decomposition between the monosulphid of potassium and the chlorid of ethylene, but resulted from destruction of the immediate product of the reaction, through the oxydizing influence of the air. If equal parts of bromid of ethylene and monosulphid of potassium, in solution in 6 parts of alcohol, are mixed together, a violent reaction, attended with disengagement of heat, com. mences after a few minutes: the whole mass becomes nearly solid from the formation of a voluminous precipitate, and at the The latter portion of this research, relating to the sulphid of ethylene and its combinations with oxygen and with bromine, has been published in the Comptes Rendus of the French Academy of Science, liv, 1277, and lv, 332. The atomic weights used in this note are H=1; C=12; 0=16; S=32; Br=80. same time a small quantity of the vapor of monobromated ethylene, unmixed with ethylene (olefiant gas), is given off as gas. If the precipitate is washed with warm water to free it from bromid of potassium and from the excess of monosulphid of potassium employed, there remains on the filter a white, amorphous body containing sulphur, which leaves no residue after incineration on platinum foil. This body is at first slightly soluble in water, and the solution gives a light yellow precipitate with salts of lead, and a white one with salts of mercury; but after having been dried in the air it becomes entirely insoluble in water. The amorphous body prepared as above is very slightly soluble in alcohol, ether and bisulphid of carbon, but a small quantity of a crystallized substance can be extracted from it by boil ing a long time in these solvents. On heating with ether, or with bisulphid of carbon at a higher temperature in a sealed tube, it is gradually decomposed with formation of a large quantity of the same crystallized substance, together with an oily product. This decomposition is complete only after several days at a temperature of 150° C., but is much more rapid at 170°-180° C. Although the ether and the bisulphid of carbon are probably not without chemical action on the amorphous body, the principal product of its decomposition in sealed tubes is the same as that obtained from it by the action of heat alone; and indeed the latter means was exclusively resorted to in order to obtain the crystallized substance in quantity sufficient for the study of its properties. The action of heat on the amorphous body can be best observed by placing the substance in a bent tube, in an oil-bath, which is gradually heated and its temperature observed by means of a thermometer, while a current of air is passed through the tube to facilitate the sublimation of volatile products. In order to examine the gases given off, the air and gases together, after leaving the tube, are conducted through water, which retains those that are soluble. The products from different preparations were treated in this manner, and all gave the same results. As the temperature rises to 160° C. a deposit of crystals is seen gradually collecting in the cool part of the tube. The crystallized sublimate augments largely in quantity between 160° and 195° C.; and at this temperature a little bromhydric acid is given off, as may be seen by testing the water through which the gas is passed. At 1950-205° the crystallized substance distils in great abundance, while a large quantity of bromhydric acid is given off. Above 205° C. the distillation of the crystallized substance nearly ceased, and the small quantity which passes over from 205° to 240° is mixed with a yellow oil, of which not enough was obtained to determine its properties. At this temperature a trace of sulphuretted hydrogen, besides bromhydric acid, is found in solution in the water. |