26 On the Sounds of the Gases, 



To conclude : this explosion must have been effected, as I 

 have ah-eady said, in a high region of the atmosphere, since the 

 wind had not reached the small cloud, and since the fragments 

 of the mass were dispersed, diverging over four communes in a 

 radius of five great quarters of a league. If similar clouds have 

 not ahvav>' been remarked simultaneously with meteors of this 

 kind, since they have been observed with care, this has arisen 

 from i'sw of those meteors having been seen in such a serene sky, 

 ftnd other clouds niu^^t have been confounded with the peculiai- 

 cloud which accompanies them. 



Here let mc direct the attention of my reader for a moment 

 to the term aao/lte, which is commonly given to meteoric stones. 

 This denomination docs not seem to be the best which may be 

 employed. In fact, it is far from certain that these stones are 

 foni'ed in the air or with air. The elevation of the meteor 

 which produces them having been ol)served to be at least thirty 

 leagues from the surface of the ground, proves that they have 

 nothing in common with the fluid which supports life on the 

 surface of fiur globe. The name of uranolijle has long appeared 

 to me to be lietter suited to bodies whose origin is uuknouii to 

 us, but which tend towards the earth through that boundless 

 space in which the stai' move, and which is luianimoush' called 

 tlie heavens. The term therefore which is formed of the Greek 

 vrord'.- ouquvos and xldoc;, deserves the j)reference to aerolite, as 

 being more detinite. Some writers have even adopted tlie term 

 vrunolile, since the publication of a Memoir which I read to th« 

 Society of Agriculture, Arts and Sciences of Agen, in 1808. 



VII. Calculations of the Intervah avd Beats of ike Sounds 

 7/iehkd In/ variant Gases in the corrected Experiments of 

 Messrs, F. Kirby, cmd A. ISIkrku k, recorded in Mr, Ni- 

 cholson's JourHuL By Mr. John Farey, Sen. 



To Mr. Tilloch. 



Sir, — In your xxxviith volume, page 3, you did me the favour 

 to insert some extracts and particulars, of an interesting series 

 of experiments, bv Messrs. F. Kirby and Arnold Merrick, of 

 Cirencester, extracted from Mr. Nicholson's Join-nal, on the dif- 

 ferent pitches or degrees of sound, yielded by the same organ- 

 pipe, wiien successively blov.'n by eight different kinds of gases, 

 in a -.uitalde apparatus. .Since that period these gentlemen have 

 re))eated their experiments with an improved apparatus for pro- 

 ducing the sounds, and with additional care j having also ex- 

 tended 



