ACCOUNT or a METEOR. 175 
From DAVID RITTENHOUSE, E/quire, to JOouN 
Pace, E/quire. 
Philadelphia, January 16, 1780. 
DEAR SIR, 
‘Read May 
2, 1783. 
DESIGN to give you my thoughts on Mag- 
netifm in fome future letter, at prefent I fhall 
confine myfelf to the fubject of the latter part of yours of 
the 4th of December latft. 
The extraordinary Meteor you mention was likewie 
vifible here, the air being ferene and clear. I did not fee 
it until the bright ftreak was become very crooked, it then 
bore S. 70° W. nearly, from Philadelphia, and comparing 
this courfe with that obferved by you, I find it muft have 
fallen on or near the Ouafiota mountains mentioned in 
Lewis Evans’s map, about 480 miles from Philadelphia 
and 365 from Williamfburg. And taking its altitude 7,° 
as obferved by you, adding 23 degrees for the depreflion 
of that place below your horizon, its entire apparent alti- 
tude above the fpot where it fell was 9°, which, ona 
radius of 365 miles, will be 61 miles perpendicular height. 
The breadth of the luminous vapour was, I think, in fome 
places, when I faw it, not lefs than a quarter of a degree; ~ 
this at 480 miles diftance muft have been at leaft two miles. 
It was certainly a grand appearance near the place where 
it fell, if any human eye was there. 
May not thefe fhooting ftars be bodies altogether foreign 
to the earth and its atmofphere, accidentally meeting with 
it as they are {wiftly traverfing the great void of {pace? 
And may they not, either electrically or by fome other 
means, excite a luminous appearance on entering our at- 
mofphere? I am inclined to this opinion for the following 
reafons: rft. It is not probable that meteors fhould be ge- 
nerated in the air at the height of 56 or 60 miles, on ac- 
count of its extreme rarenefs ; and many falling ftars, be- 
fides this, are known with certainty to have been at very 
Z2 great 
