266 Dr. Reynolds on Meteors. 
PHYSICS AND CHEMISTRY. 
Art. XI. Outline of a Theory of Meteors. 
By Wa. G. Reynotps, M. D, Middletown Point, Nelo 
Sour the progress of science, fora century to come, keep 
pace with its rapid advancement for the last fifty years, many 
appearances in the physical world, now enveloped in obscurity, 
will then admit of as easy solution as the combustion of inflamma- 
ble substances, or any familiar process in chemistry does at this 
day. Among the many subjects from which the veil of mystery 
would thus, be raised, we may include those luminous. appearan- 
ces, in the aerial regions, called meteors, which I am about, to 
consider in the following ¢ essay ; and which seem to constitute a 
ote class of bodies of considerable variety. 
-teor were regarded by the ancients as the sure prognos- 
ties of great and a awful: events in the moral and physical world; 
and were divided ‘by them into « ‘several Species, receiving 0% names 
characteristic of the various forms and appearances they a 
sumed ; but of their opinions, as to the physical cause of “these 
phenomina, the ancients have left us nothing solid or instructive: 
moderns more enlightened, have ceased to regard rq_ these 
bodies with the superstitious awe of former ages ; ; but in respect 
to the cause thereof, are perhaps but little in advance of their 
predecessors, having, 1 believe, produced nothing yet that will 
bear the test of philosophical investigation 
gden (Philosophical ‘Transactions, 1784,) consi iders 
electricity « as ‘the general cause of these phenomena 5. 3 Doctor 
Gregory, and others, think they depend upon. collections. of 
highly inflammable matter, as phosphorus, phosphorated 3 
drogen, &c. being volatized and congregated in the upper, r 
