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As it moved upwards through the sky, its apparent magnitude 

 diminished with such perfect regularity until it finally disappeared, 

 that at the time I had the impression that it had vanished, not by 

 dissolution of its parts, or extinction of its light, but only optically, 

 from the effect of increased distance. I do not wish, however, to 

 attach much importance to this nearly momentary feeling, for the 

 observation was of too transitory a nature to make it deserving of 

 much confidence. 



The meteor appeared to me not like a self-luminous body ; al- 

 though, in the presence of so bright an object as the sun, negative 

 evidence on such a point cannot be regarded as decisive. Its colour 

 was perfectly white, and its apparent brightness was probably not 

 greater than that of the moon seen under similar circumstances, — 

 certainly it did not exceed that of an ordinary cloud illuminated by 

 the sun. 



Mr Wallace, as soon as he had time to recover from the surprise 

 excited by so unusual a spectacle described what he had seen as one 

 of the most beautiful phenomena he had ever beheld. It will be re- 

 collected that it was he who first pointed out the meteor to me ; and 

 having been the first to notice it, he had thus also been able to ob- 

 serve some interesting changes in its form which I was too late to 

 witness. By his kindness I am enabled to state what he saw in 

 his own words. 



" On the forenoon of the 30th September last," he says, ** I was 

 in a field distant about five hundred yards from Balgrummo house, 

 and about a mile and three quarters from Leven. The sky was rather 

 free from clouds, and the sun was shining brightly. I happened to 

 look in the direction of Lethem farm-house, when I was startled by 

 observing a remarkable object, apparently traversing the atmosphere 

 with a steady motion resembling that of a balloon, but much quicker. 

 It appeared to me to be not perfectly round, but somewhat pear-shaped ; 

 and it had a lustre like quicksilver, but seemed more transparent. 

 Its movement was upwards like a rising balloon, and not downwards 

 like a * falling star.' I only saw it for two, certainly not for more 

 than three seconds ; and its direction, as nearly as I could judge, 

 was from N.E. to S.W. It appeared to preserve its original shape 

 for about half the time during which it remained visible ; but it 

 then seemed to burst at the lower part into a number of fragments, 

 which one by one disappeared, until it finally vanished altogether. 



