232 An Account of a Shotuer of Meteoric Stones, 



tre, but was of an irregular round form, and with this low 

 power extended to about 5, 6, or 7 minutes in diameter. 

 When I magnified 109 times it was considerably reduced in 

 size, which plainly indicated that a further increase of mag* 

 nilying power would be of no service for discovering a nu- 

 cleus. On account of cloudy weather I never had ^n op^ 

 portunity of seeing ihe comet afterwards. 



When I compare these observations with my former ones 

 of 13 other telescopic comets, I find that out of the 16 which 

 J have ckamimcd, 14 have been without kny visible solid 

 body in their centre, and that the other two had a very ill 

 defined small central light, which might perhaps be called a 

 nucleus, but did not deserve the name of a disk. 



XLIX. An Account of a remarkable Shower of Metewic 

 Stones, at IVeston in America. By Mr. Silliman, 

 Professor of Chemisti-y , and iVfr. Kingsi^ey, Professor 

 of Languages^ in Yale College^, 



Yale College, Dec. 2G, 1807. 



.As imperfect and erroneous accounts of the late phaeno-r 

 menon at Weston are finding their way into circulation, 

 we take the liberty of enclosing for publication the result 

 of an investigation into the circumstances and evidence of 

 the event referred to, which we have made on the ground 

 •where it happened. That we may not interrupt our narra- 

 tion by repeating the observation wherever it is applicable, 

 we may remark, once for all, that we visited and carefully 

 examined every spot where the stones had been ascertain- 

 ed to have fallen, and several places where they had been 

 only suspected without any discovery; that we obtained 

 specimens of every stone-^ conversed with all the principal 

 original witnesses ; spent several days in the investigation, 

 and were, at the time, the only persons who had explored 

 the whole ground. 



Benjamin Silliman, 

 James L. Kingsley. 



^ Conimunlcatedbv the right hon. Charles Grevillc, F.R.S, &c. 



Tlie 



