Dr. Reynolds on Meteors. ae 
gions of the air. Doctor Halley ascribes them to a fortuitous 
concourse of atoms, which the earth meets in her annual track 
through the ecliptic; and Sir John Pringle seems to regard 
them as bodies of a celestial character, revolving round centres, 
and intended by the Creator for wise and beneficent purposes, 
perhaps to our atmosphere, to free it of noxious qualities, or sup- 
ply such as are salutary. Many other theories, as ingenious as 
fanciful, might be enumerated; but without commenting on their 
comparative merit, 1 must acknowledge that none of them have 
yet impressed my mind with a conviction of their trath. A se- 
ties of observations, however, has enabled the moderns to as- 
certain, with apparent accuracy, several particulars relative to 
ese stupendous bodies, which add much to our Agee of 
their general character :—their velocity, € ‘and even 
40 miles in a second of time ; their altitude, Gan ne 100 miles: 
and their diameter, in some instances, more than a mile, are facts 
we derive from respectable authority, and may aid us, essentially, 
in forming just conceptions of their nature and properties. _ 
1 believe meteoric stones to result from all meteoric explosions; 
limiting, however, the term meteor to those phenomena, in the 
higher regions of the air, denominated fire-balls, shooting-stars, 
&c. That these bodies move in a resisting medium, must be 
evident to every attentive observer ; and that this medium is our 
atmosphere, is pretty certain, ist. Because we know of no other 
resisting medium around the earth; 2dly. Because the same kind 
of resistance is apparent at every intermediate altitude, from 
their greatest to their least, which last we know to be far within 
our atmospheric bounds ; and 3dly. Calculation has, in no instance, 
*signed them an elevation beyond the probable height of the at- 
Mosphere. 
That meteors proceed from the earth, that they rise from 
“ertain combinations of its elements with heat, and that meteoric. 
stones are the necessary result of the decompositions of these 
©ombinations, are opinions I will endeavor to = as - 
following considerations. . 
= Ist. The pro tj 1 hobitud 
a 
“dltons and combinations. 
me Pos j Sahel CPR. 
aw 9° 
