A METEORIC SHOWER.

269

of fire, as large as the sun or moon appear, rushing from the direction of the zenith, and describing a curve as it flew toward the horizon at the southwest.

32. "After this smaller meteors continued to fly in all directions until they were overpowered by daylight on the morning of the 13th. They rushed down through the air as thick as large

snowflakes, yet

vastly more

luminous, ap

pearing to the

beholder as con

suming their

substance in

their flight, or wearing it away by friction against the walls of air. Most of the meteors appeared as large and as brilliant as the stars themselves, and many persons thought that the celestial luminaries were rushing down to the earth, for the heavens blazed with an incessant discharge of globes of fire that appeared as descending in countless numbers. Some of the meteors appeared to strike the earth and explode, scattering their fragments in all directions; yet, by the light of day, no traces of the great shower could be discovered. No violence was done to anything; no twig, leaf, or flower was injured, and the shower left no record of itself except in memory."

33. The above is a description of the shower as it ap peared in Montgomery County. A writer in another part of the state said: "I witnessed one of the grandest and most alarming spectacles which ever beamed upon the eye of man. The light in my room was so great that I could see the hour of the morning by my watch, which hung over the mantel. I sprang to the window and beheld the stars, or some other bodies, presenting a fiery appearance, descending in torrents as rapid and numerous as ever I saw

flakes of snow or drops of rain in the midst of a storm. Occasionally a large body of apparent fire would be hurled through the air, which, without noise, exploded, when millions of fiery particles would be cast through the air.”

34. "At twenty minutes past five in the morning," said a writer in Baltimore," a meteor about six inches in diameter exploded with considerable noise almost perpendicularly over the northwest part of the city. The blaze was splendid, so as to give the sky the appearance of sunrise. It shot in the direction of the northwest, leaving a stream of light, which assumed a serpentine form of apparently thirty feet in length, and lasted more than one minute."

CHAPTER XXIX.

1840-1860.

Constitution of Maryland.-Baltimore and Ohio Railroad.-Harper's Ferry.

1. It will be remembered that the first constitution of Maryland was formed in 1776, but since then several new ones have successively taken its place. The legislature under this constitution met every year on the first Monday in November, and the governor of the state was elected on the second Monday of the same month; but the constitution was altered at the session of 1823 and confirmed in 1824.

2. After the time of this alteration it is found that the legislative power of the state was vested in a senate, consisting of fifteen members, and a house of delegates, consisting of eighty members; and these two branches united were styled "the General Assembly of Maryland.”

3. The members of the house of delegates, four from each county, were elected annually by the people on the first Monday in October; and the members of the senate were elected every fifth year, on the third Monday in September, at Annapolis, by electors who were chosen by the people on the first Monday of the same month. These electors elected by ballot nine senators from the western and six from the eastern shore, who held their offices for five years.

4. The executive power of the state was vested in a governor, who was elected annually on the first Monday in

January by a joint ballot of both houses of the general assembly. No person could hold the office of governor more than three years successively, nor was he eligible as governor until the expiration of four years after he had been out of that office. The governor was assisted by a council of five members, who were chosen annually by a joint ballot of the two houses of assembly.

5. The general assembly met on the last Monday in December. The council of the governor was elected on the first Tuesday in January. The constitution granted the right of suffrage to every free, white, male citizen above twenty-one years of age, who had resided twelve months in the state and six months in the county, or in the cities of Baltimore or Annapolis, next preceding the election at which he offered to vote. In 1836 the governor's council was abolished.

6. The state was divided into six judicial districts, each comprising two, three, or four counties. For each district there was a chief judge and two associates, who constituted the county courts for the respective counties in the district. These were the common-law courts of original jurisdiction in the state, and they had jurisdiction of all claims for fifty dollars and upward, appellate jurisdiction from the judgments of justices of the peace, and equity jurisdiction within the counties coextensive with the chancellor. The six chief judges constituted the court of appeals for the state, which had appellate jurisdiction of cases at law and in equity, originating in the county courts, the orphans' courts, and the court of chancery.

7. In 1836 a new county was erected out of parts of Frederick and Baltimore Counties, and named Carroll County, in honor of Charles Carroll, of Carrollton.

8. It lies north of the western branch of the Patapsco Falls, and west of the northern branch, and extends north to the Pennsylvania line and northwest to the Monocacy River.