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Notices regarding Fiery Meteors seen during the Day. By 

 J. H. Serres, Sub-prefect of Embrun *. 



JT^rofessor Hansteen relates, that while he was observing 

 the polar star, on the 13th August 1825, at a quarter past 11 

 in the morning, he saw, passing in the field of his telescope, a 

 luminous point, the light of which was brighter than that of 

 the star. Its apparent motion was upwards, it was slow and 

 somewhat sinuous. He imagined it to be a falling star. 



Mr Dick of Perth, in the Edinburgh Philosophical Journal, 

 is of opinion, that the phenomenon observed by Professor Han- 

 steen, was not a falling star, but some bird placed at a great dis- 

 tance, the convex surface of which reflected the solar light in 

 the direction of the axis of the telescope. Without denying that 

 the light reflected very obliquely from the feathers of a bird, is 

 capable of producing an eff*ect similar to that described by Pro- 

 fessor Hansteen, I am yet of opinion that the explanation ought 

 not to be generahzed. Wliile observing the sun at the repeat- 

 ing circle, I have frequently perceived, even through the colour- 

 ed glass adapted to the eye-piece, large luminous points, which 

 traversed the field of the telescope. They appeared too well de- 

 fined not to admit them to be distant, and subtended too large 

 angles to imagine them birds. I have sometimes thought that 

 these points shewed themselves more frequently at the periods of 

 the year when great quantities of spiders' webs are carried by 

 the winds into our atmosphere. The phenomenon certainly merits 

 investigation. Why, in fact, should there not be faOing stars 

 during the day as well as at night ? Who can affirm, if these me- 

 teors are produced on the extreme Hmits of our atmosphere, that 

 the presence of the sun does not favour their formation ? I leave 

 to the reader to decide if there be not some analogy between the 

 phenomena of which we speak, and that described, in a letter ad- 

 dressed to the President of the Academy of Sciences, by the sub- 

 prefect of Embrun, dated the 5th October 1820. 



" Chance has made me the spectator of a phenomenon which I 



imagine to be new, and which I have deemed interesting for na- 



*tural philosophy and astronomy. Under this twofold relation, 



I have been induced to make it known to you. The following, 



* From the Annates de Chimie, October 1825. 



