B44 « Ob/ervations on Fire-Balls. © 
heaven. It is a pity that the place was not dug up where 
the fire-ball, mentioned in the Philofophical TranfaGtions*,. 
fellin Jamaica, in the year 1700. In that fpot there were 
found feveral holes in the earth, which were fo deep, that the 
poles with which they were examined did not réach to the 
bottom of them. A fulphureous vapor was perceived in the 
neighbourhood, and the grafs around the holes appeared 
fcorched. 
When all thefe data, which correfpond fo well with each 
other, are compared with the obfervations made on other 
fire-balls, where no opportunity occurred of getting poffef- 
fion of the fallen mafles, the following conclufions may be 
drawn: 
I, That the accounts given of {coriaceous mafles, which 
contained iron, earth, fulphur, &c. having fallen from the 
heavens with violent explofions, are not fictions, but true re- 
lations of real natural phenomena actually obferved at va- 
rious times. 
II. That fire-balls and the falling of fuch maffes are the 
fame meteor. 
Refpecting the queftion, whence fire-balls and fuch fallen 
maffes proceed, opinions are very different. Moft people be- 
lieve that they are owing to accumulations in the atmo- 
fphere. But even when it is allowed that a great many fo- 
reign fubftances are diffolved in the atmofphere, the quantity 
of them, efpecially in regions at the diftance of eighty 
miles or more, from which fuch fire-balls are feen to fall 
in the form of a luminous point, is too {mall ta admit of our 
fuppofing fuch large maffes to be formed of it. Should the 
folid particles, which may perhaps be diffolved in the atmo- 
fphere, precipitate them{elves, it would be rather in the form 
of a fine powder. I confider it, therefore, with Anaxagoras, 
Mafkelyne, Halley, &c. as more probable that thefe mafles 
come to our regions from the common expanfe of the uni- 
verfe, and that, befides planetary bodies, there are fmaller. 
# N° ceclvii. p. 1485 Pe 8 
2 accu~ 
