which he caught the trains with the spectroscope, they gave spectra chiefly of yellow and green; while the nuclei gave all the primitive colors.-(Intell. Observer, Nov. 1866.)

Mr. Baxendell, who witnessed off the western coast of Central America the display of 1833, declares that of 1866 far inferior to the former, both in the number of meteors and in the brilliancy of the larger ones. He states that the directions of flights in 1833 were much more irregular than in 1866; and, besides making some suggestions in reference to the cosmical theory of the origin of meteors, he calls attention to the fact that, at the time of maximum frequency, the earth was advancing in its orbit almost directly toward the radiant (to a point of long. 2° 12'.7 less); whence he infers also that the meteors were crossing the earth's path from within outward.

M. Faye remarked before the Academy of Sciences (Comptes Rendus, Nov. 19, 1866) on the meteoric display, for which he was led to watch, as he implies, by a suggestion of Olbers of the possible return of the great star-shower in 1866 or '67, as well as by the confirmatory researches of Prof. Newton, and by the fact that the November displays, waning from the year 1833, had begun to increase again from 1864. On the morning of the 14th, although the sky was often covered with clouds, yet, looking toward Orion, he noted 81 meteors during the half hour following 1 5, and 45 again during 40 minutes following 3 5; and, of the whole number, all save two diverged from the superior part of Leo. Many were very brilliant, some being visible through clouds which masked the brighter stars of Orion. The display was well seen by Dr. B. A. Gould, with others, at Valentia, Ireland. The sky was clear, and from 12" 39" to 15", he alone counted 310; and, with a second observer, 203 during the 90 seconds following 1 9. Of the meteors he says, "The comparatively slow and uniform movement of most of them, their long bright trains, and pure white light, presented a strong resemblance to the flight of rockets." Mention of the appearance of the shower at Saragossa, Spain, and at Beirut, Syria, has also been met with.

In New Haven, night of November 13-14th, a party of observers (12 most of the time), and of which again Professor Newton was one, noted from 11 P. M. to 4 A. M. 881 meteors, generally more brilliant than on the preceding night, and a large proportion of them conformable. Professor Twining, observing alone at the same place during two hours of the morning of the 14th, noted 62 conformable meteors, the average length of paths being about 10°, and average time five seconds. At 2 11m of the same morning, a very bright green (or blue) meteor appeared about 20° south of Regulus, visible at New Haven, Newark, and elsewhere, and leaving a trail or cloud 4° long, which floated away to the north-bending up, as seen from Newark, as is usual with such

trains-and remaining in sight 9 minutes. From the observations at different points, Professor Newton calculates its altitudes at appearance and disappearance as about 120 and 60 miles, its length 5, and its breadth 3 miles. Its northward motion, at right angles to the course of the meteor, was ascribed to a current in the atmosphere. "The material of the meteor must have been considerable in order to have filled several cubic miles with its débris. And yet this débris must have been very attenuated to float in an atmosphere so light as that which is 60 or 90 miles from the earth's surface." Finally, Professor Newton suggests that if there shall be a star-shower in 1867, and if the group of meteoroids lies sensibly in a plane, the limiting lines of visibility should be removed 90° or 100° westward: unless, under perturbations due to the action of the earth, Jupiter, or other planets, the time of the maximum, and so the region in which the shower is to occur, may meantime have been changed.

Miscellaneous.-Professor Newton's paper contains also a suggestion by Professor Twining of a form of instrument to be used in observing meteors-a conical shell, mounted as a telescope -with opening at the apex for the eye, and its base occupied by a system of diverging and circular wires, by means of which the directions of flight, and extremities and lengths of paths, may be determined more accurately than by the unaided vision. M. Faye (loc. cit.) suggests, as a means of rendering the observations more precise, that two observers, each furnished with a telescope mounted very high and so as to be very mobile, endeavor to fix the extreme points of visibility of the trains, and further, that observations be thus carried on at different stations telegraphically connected; questions of radiant, height, velocity, etc., might thus be more accurately determined.

M. Faye also mentions facts which have led him to conclude that the meteoric rings of April 20th, August 10th, and November 13th, whose periodicity is established, are very nearly circular, or at least have their longer axis very near to the line of nodes, a circumstance which has been remarked in many periodical comets; but that the like is not true of the meteors of April 10th, October 19th, and December 12th, the claim of which to the title of rings is more doubtful.

Professor Newton, in an article in the American Journal of Science, 1866-v. 41, p. 192, deduces, from observations made in the previous November period, the proportionate number of meteors likely to be seen at the same place by different groups of observers, from 12 down to 1. He infers that four observers, dividing the sky between them, would see three times as many as one, and yet no more than about one-half the total number then visible. In the paper above cited, also, he concludes that, with such observers, meteors, and methods of observing, as those of the two nights of the November period, 1866, fourteen persons

would see six times as many as one, and yet lose a third or more of those that could be seen by an indefinite number, especially when the flights were generally faint.

Mr. D. Trowbridge states (American Journal of Science, September, 1866), that at about 8h 15 P. M., July 26th, a bright red meteor flashed out in Cygnus, moving rapidly with a blue train, to the west-time of flight, to 1 second and which certainly passed below some cirro-stratus clouds that were so dense as completely to hide ordinary stars. C. Behrmann, of Göttingen, has stated also that, on the 30th of July of the same year, meteors were seen to come out of a thick cloud which covered the entire sky, and was too dense to allow of their being visible through it-those bodies appearing about 15° above the horizon, leaving a visible path of 5° to 6°, and vanishing in about a half-second. The writer believed that these meteors came within one mile of the

earth. An account of a meteor, which probably exploded above the clouds, near Charleston, S. C., and over the sea, but which produced in and near that city an extremely brilliant flash of light, and a continuous reverberation not unlike that of thunder, is found in the American Journal of Science for March, 1866.

At the meeting of the National Academy of Sciences, at Northampton, August 8, 1866, Professor Pierce read a paper on the "Origin of the Solar Heat," in which he controverted Mayer's theory of the source of such heat in a conversion of mechanical force, that is, as being kept up by a constant fall of meteoric bodies into the sun. It is stated that the author of the paper favored, instead, the view of the solar heat as originating in a slow condensation of the matter of the sun.

Meteorites.-Descriptions and analyses of meteoric irons (period of fall unknown) found in the territory of Colorado, are given in the American Journal of Science, dates of September, 1866, and January, 1867; and some account of the meteorite of Knyahinya, Hungary (June 9, 1866), in the same journal for November, 1866; and of the meteorites of Aumale, Algeria (August 25, 1865), in the number for May, 1866. A communication in three parts to the French Academy of Sciences, by M. Daubrée, entitled, "Synthetic Experiments relative to Meteorites: Points of agreement to which they conduct, in reference to the formation of those planetary bodies and to that of the terrestrial globe," appears in the Comptes Rendus, dates of January 29th, February 19th, and March 19th, 1866. The American Journal of Science for January, 1867, contains also a "New Classification of Meteorites, with an Enumeration of Meteoric Species," by Professor Charles U. Shepard, the classification differing in some particulars from that of Mr. Greg, given in the preceding volume of the CYCLOPEDIA.

METHODISTS. I. Methodist Episcopal Church. The membership of the Methodist

The number of effective preachers in 1866 was 6,287; of superannuated, 1,289; of local preachers, 7,576. The number of churches (houses of worship), is 10,462, an increase of 420. The estimated total value is $29,594,004, an increase of $2,843,502. The number of parsonages is 3,314, valued at $4,420,958, an increase of 171 in number, and of $24,277 in value. The total value of church edifices and parsonages is $34,014,962, being an increase of $2,867,729. The following are the summaries of the contributions for the principal benevolent causes, omitting all receipt from legacies: for conference claimants, worn-out preachers, and widows and orphans of ministers who have died in the work, $107,892, an increase of $14,743; for missionary society, $671,090, an increase of $69,025; for Tract Society, $23,349, an increase of $1,026; for American Bible Society, $107,238, an increase of $5,495; for Sunday-school Union, $19,850, an increase of $782. The total contributions for these objects is $929,221. This is an increase over the returns of 1865, of $91,073. The total number of schools is 14,045, an increase of 96; that of officers and teachers, 162,191, an increase of 8,492; scholars, 980,622, an increase of 48,898; volumes in library, 2,614,291, an increase of 169,195. The Sundayschool Advocate, at the close of the volume in October, issued a regular edition of over 300,000 copies, a large increase over the subscription list of the preceding year.

The progress of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the late slave-holding States, continues to be more rapid than that of any other of the northern anti-slavery churches, and to augur important results, ecclesiastical as well as political. At the beginning of the civil war, the Church only had six conferences, which wholly or partly were situated in the territory of these States. They extended but little south of the frontier of the northern and southern sections, embracing only the States of Missouri, Maryland, Delaware, the valley of Virginia, with a few isolated congregations in Kentucky and Arkansas. Early in 1865, the Holston Conference in East Tennessee, was organized with a membership (almost exclusively white), of 6,462. The progress of this conference has been most extraordinary, the number of members in 1866 rising to 18,211, an increase of nearly 200 per cent. On October 11, 1866, a second annual conference was organized in the State of Tennessee, called the "Tennessee Conference," and numbering, at the time of its organization, 2,689 members, 484 probationers, 22 Sunday-schools, with 2,548 scholars. The Mississippi Mission Conference, which was organized in Dec. 1865, with 2,216 members, counted, in 1866, 6,568 members and 1,331 probationers, exclusive of the congregations in Texas, which on January 3, 1867, were organized into a separate annual conference (the "Texas Conference"), that on its start as a conference, counted a membership of 1,093 members and 491 probationers. The missions in South Carolina, Eastern Georgia

and Florida, were organized into an annual conference (South Carolina Mission Conference), on April 2, 1866, the membership of which, at its first meeting, was reported at 5,165 members in full connection, and 887 probationers. The progress of the Church was particularly rapid in Western Georgia and Alabama, where the missions on Jan. 24, 1866, were organized into the "Western Georgia and Alabama Mission District." Before the close of the year, this district had sprung into the proportions of an annual conference, having, in December, 44 travelling, about 52 local preachers, and nearly 6,000 members. The missions in Eastern Virginia and North Carolina, with 15 ministers and 675 members, were erected into an annual conference, on January 3, 1867. Together, these new conferences, organized in the late slaveholding States in 1865, 1866, and Jan. 1867, embraced a membership of about 43,000. There were also in successful operation, within the bounds of these conferences, two theological institutions, "The Thomson Biblical Institute," at New Orleans, and the "Baker Theological Institute," of Charleston; and two weekly papers were issued, the New Orleans Christian Advocate and the Charleston Christian Advocate. It was the common expectation of all the missionaries, that the Church would continue to make rapid progress in all the Southern States.

The foreign missions" of the Church in Liberia, South America, China, Germany, India, Bulgaria, Scandinavia, embraced in 1865 202 missionaries, and 7,478 members; and the "domestic missions" among the Germans, Indians, Scandinavians, and Welsh, 26,075 members. The General Missionary Committee appropriated, for the year 1867, the sum of $1,030,778; namely: foreign missions, $306,674; foreign population in the United States, $64,350; Indian missions, $4,600; American domestic missions in 57 annual conferences (including six conferences in the South, $158,400) $449,100; missions in the United States not included in any annual conference, $55,554; for building churches in the South, $70,700; miscellaneous appropriations, $80,000.

The number of colleges, universities, and Biblical institutes was in 1866, as follows:

Upper Iowa University.. Fayette, Iowa. Wesleyan University. Middletown, Conn. Wallamet University ...Salem, Oregon. Baker Theological Institute... Charleston, S. C. Garrett Biblical Institute.....Evanston, Illinois. Methodist General Bib. Inst... Concord, N. H. Mission Theological Institute. Bremen, Germany. Thomson Biblical Institute....New Orleans, La. The year 1866, the centenary of American Methodism, was celebrated throughout the United States by special services, by largely attended special meetings, and by contributions for the general centenary funds. As far as returned up to the close of the year, the contributions reached the sum of about four million dollars. The marvellous progress of the Church during the first century of its existence in the United States from decade to decade, is exhibited by the following table:

644,229* Dec. 5,874 800,327 1,032,184

156,098 231,857

1866.... 7,576 1,699 II. Methodist Episcopal Church South.-This Church, which at the beginning of the late civil war numbered about 700,000, lost during the war, and in consequence of the abolition of slavery, at least one-half of the colored members. The first general conference since the beginning of the war, was opened at New Orleans on the 4th of April and lasted one month. The conference made numerous changes in the discipline, some of them merely verbal. The most important action was the following: the election of four additional bishops, making ten in all. Three of these, Bishops Soulé, Andrew, and Early, were made supernumerary. The work was divided into seven episcopal districts, each bishop to be supported by the churches in the district over which he has supervision. The name of the Church was changed from "Methodist Episcopal Church South," to "Episcopal Methodist Church." This change, to be effective, must obtain the concurrence of a majority of all the members of the annual conferences present and voting on the question. The attendance upon class-meetings was made a privilege instead of a duty. The rule on the reception of members was changed, so as to do away with the preliminary relation of probation. The

stewards of churches were allowed to estimate the pastors' salaries without any reference to

*By the withdrawal and separation of Southern Conferences in 1844, organizing the Methodist Episcopal Church South, the Methodist Episcopal Church lost 1,345 travelling preachers, and 493,288 members, and yet so rapid was her growth during the decade, that at its close (two years after the separation) there was a net gain of 654 preachers, and a lack of only 5,874 members of making up the number lost.

amounts named in the discipline. Provision was made for monthly inquiry meetings, designed to examine the spiritual and financial condition of the charges. The Missionary Society was divided into two boards, foreign and domestic, and Baltimore designated as the headquarters of the former, and Nashville that of the latter. Several new annual conferences were organized (the whole number will now be twenty-seven), and the organization of several others authorized. The limit of the pastoral term was extended to four instead of two years. It was resolved to introduce lay representation into the annual and general conferences, but this change requires the concurrence of threefourths of all the members of the annual conferences present and voting on the question.

The next session of the General Conference is to be held in Memphis, Tennessee, on the first Wednesday of May, 1870.

The chapter of the discipline regulating the relation of the Church to colored people, was so changed as to read as follows:

Question. What shall be done to promote the interests of the colored people?

Answer 1. Let our colored members be organized as separate pastoral charges wherever they prefer it and their number may justify it.

Ans. 2. Let each pastoral charge of colored members have its own quarterly conferences composed of official members, as provided in the discipline.

Ans. 3. Let colored persons be licensed to preach, and ordained deacons and elders, according to the discipline, when, in the judgment of the conferences having jurisdiction in the case, they are deemed sui:able persons for said office and orders in the ministry.

Ans. 4. The bishop may form a district of colored charges and appoint to it a colored presiding elder when, in his judgment, the religious interests of the colored people require it.

Ans. 5. When it is judged advisable by the college of bishops, an annual conference of colored persons may be organized, to be presided over by some one of our bishops.

Ans. 6. When two or more annual conferences shall be formed, let our bishops advise and assist them in organizing a separate general conference jurisdiction for themselves, if they do so desire it, with the doctrines and discipline of our Church, and and the bishops deem it expedient, in accordance having the same relation to this general conference

as the annual conferences have to each other.

Ans. 7. Let special attention be given to Sundayschools among the colored people.

The committee on correspondence with other churches submitted their report, which was adopted as follows:

Resolved, 1. That the Methodist Episcopal Church South stands this day, as she always has stood, ready and willing to consider with Christian candor any unequivocal and Scriptural overtures for sympathy and fellowship which may be tendered her by any body of Christians in their general representative capacity.

2. That the General Conference most warmly reciprocates the fraternal greetings and expressions of Christian confidence from the Christian Union of Illinois by their representative, J. Deitzler.

3. That one bishop, and brother J. H. Lynn, be appointed fraternal messengers from this body to attend the annual council of the Christian Union.

4. That, should there be any Church or association

wishing to unite with us, they shall be received on giving satisfactory evidence of belief in our articles of religion, and willingness to conform to our discipline, ministers carrying the same grade as they held in their own church, according to the mode prescribed by their discipline.

The corresponding secretary of the Mission Society, Dr. Sebon, gave the following account

of the condition of the missions of the Church.

At the commencement of the late rebellion this denomination had 257 domestic missions, with 210 ministers, and a membership of 43,376; also 248 colored missions, supplied by 207 ministers, and a membership of 76,264; also 25 Indian missions, with 30 native preachers, and 8 manual labor schools, with 455 students; also a large German mission, numbering in membership 1,178, and a flourishing mission in China. The effects of the war have paralyzed and scattered all these institutions, and to-day they are but wrecks. The secretary, however, took a hopeful view of the future, and recommended earnest effort upon the part of the conference to resuscitate and rebuild their waste places.

III. Methodist Protestants, American Wesleyans, and Primitive Methodists.-A convention of delegates from non-episcopal Methodist bodies, called with reference to the question of union, met in the Union Chapel, Cincinnati, on May 9th. A large number of delegates were present, representing the following ecclesiastical bodies: Muskingum, Pittsburg, Michigan, Genesee, Ohio, North Illinois, North Iowa, Western Michigan, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Onondaga, Illinois, New York, Boston, Wabash, and South Illinois Conferences of the Methodist Protestant Church; Central Ohio, New York, Iowa, Indiana, Miami, Michigan, Rochester, Alleghany, and Syracuse Conferences of the Wesleyan Methodist Church; Union Chapel, (Cincinnati,) Independent Methodist Church; Union Church, Mount Vernon, Ohio; Union Chapel Church, Livonia, Michigan; Independent Church, Sumpter, Michigan; Church of the New Testament, (Dr. Stockton's,) Philadelphia. The convention organized by electing Rev. S. A. Baker, of New York, president. The following was adopted as a part of the constitution:

Sec. 1. The conditions required of those who apply for probationary membership in church are: a desire to flee the wrath to come and be saved by grace, through our Lord Jesus Christ, with an avowed determination to walk in all the commandments of God blameless.

Sec. 2. The churches shall have power to receive members on profession of faith, or on certificate of good standing in any other Christian church, provided that they are satisfied with the Christian experience of the candidate.

Sec. 3. Every church shall have the right to hold and control its own property, and manage its own financial affairs, independent of all associated rela

tions or bodies.

Sec. 4. Any church agreeing to conform to our book of discipline and means of grace may, on application to the president of a yearly conference, to an elder or pastor, or to a quarterly conference, be received as a member of this body.

Sec. 5. It is expected of all churches, as a condition of remaining connected with the general body, that they continue to conform with the constitution and the essential regulations contained in its book of discipline.

66

The Convention, by a vote of 109 yeas to 21 nays, adopted for the new organization the name Methodist Church." A resolution respecting secret societies-condemning the same -presented in behalf of two members from the Wesleyan Alleghany Conference, was laid on the table by 46 to 29 votes.

The General Conference of the Methodist Protestant Church met at Alleghany city, Pennsylvania, on Wednesday, November 14th, and adjourned on the evening of the twentysecond. Rev. John Scott, D. D., presided. The important action of the session was the adoption of the constitution as adopted by the convention in Cincinnati, and of the discipline prepared by the committee there appointed, as mediately upon its adjournment, and the change amended by this convention, to take effect imof name of the denomination from Methodist Protestant to "The Methodist Church," by which it will hereafter be known. This action is an important step toward the union of nonepiscopal Methodist bodies, and a resolution. was passed that all independent churches, who were such at the time of the Cincinnati Convention, numbering fifty members, and also all union members of churches in conferences which have taken action adverse to union, who may associate themselves together to the numof three hundred, shall be entitled to one minister and one layman as representatives of said church or association in the General Convention in Cleveland in May next. The Methodist Protestant, published at Springfield, Ohio, as the organ of the Church of the same name, has, since the union of the Methodist Protestants with the Wesleyans and Independent Methodists, under the simple name of " The Methodist Church," changed its title to "The Methodist Recorder." The several general Church boards, elected by the General Conference, are located as follows: the Board of Publication and the Board of Missions are located in Springfield, Ohio. The Board of Ministerial Education is located at Pittsburg. The Board of Trustees of the Collegiate Association has its executive committee located at Adrian, Michigan.

The "American Wesleyans" were greatly divided on the question of a union with the Methodist Protestants. A majority of the conferences declared against the union. Of those who opposed this union, many, including some of the most prominent men of the Church, declared in favor of a return to the Methodist Episcopal Church. The southern branch of the Methodist Protestant Church is tending toward the Methodist Episcopal Church South.

The 22d annual conference of the "Primitive Methodist Church" of the United States was held in New Diggings, Lafayette County, Wis., on the 17th of June. Thomas Leckley presided, and Rev. J. Sharp officiated as secretary. The subject of union with other non-episcopal Methodists was considered, and the following resolution adopted:

That we favor all means and measures to consum