Sounds like a plan, John! With all the stuff we've turned up here, and with your meticulous editing of that, it will be easy to...erm...steal links for the chronological treatment that I propose. I've already lots of new references from the 1820s, and I've not even begun to break out the 1820s quotes from this thread yet. (*I'm looking for things that were allegedly *observed* (or first written about) in the given decade; the publication dates can be later.)

And I am especially interested on how the authors are describing what they've seen, so far as that gives an idea of how familiar or prevalent it might have been.