However, there could be no delay and consequent disappointment at the return of this meteor swarm in 1833, which was not only totally unexpected, but furnished a scene of such splendor that words fail to convey an idea of its impressive character. We are told, by those who were so fortunate as to witness it, that the meteors fell as thickly as snowflakes. My father used to relate the following story regarding one of the planters of South Carolina who gave a most impressive account of the consternation caused among the negroes on this occasion. To quote the words of the planter: “I was suddenly awakened by the most distressing cries that ever fell on my ears. Shrieks of horror and cries for mercy I could hear from most of the negroes of the three plantations, amounting in all to about six or eight hundred. While earnestly listening for the cause, I heard a faint voice near the door calling my name. I arose and, taking my sword, stood at the door. “At this moment I heard the same voice still beseeching me to rise, assuring me that the world was on fire. I then opened the door, and it is difficult to say which excited me the most, the awfulness of the scene or the distressed cries of the negroes. Upward of a hundred lay prostrate on the ground, some speechless and some giving utterance to the bitterest cries. With hands upraised, they implored God to save the world and them. The scene was truly awful, for never did rain fall much thicker than the meteors fell towards the earth—east, west, north and south, it was the same.” Renewed interest was taken in the subject as the year 1866 drew near, for Professor Newton of New Haven, U. S. A., had found, after a careful examination of records in 1864, that there had been a number of great autumnal meteoric star-showers separated by periods of about thirty-three years. As a result of his investigations, he predicted that a shower would occur in 1866, and conjectured that the path along which the meteor stream would travel might have one of five different orbits; one with a period of thirty-three and a quarter years, two with periods of one year plus or minus eleven days, and two with periods of half a year plus or minus five and a half days.