On the general Nature of Bolides. 291 



ceed to adduce a few of the more striking cases in which some 

 of these phaenomena have been displayed; selected from an 

 extensive collection of similar materials now before me. 



The appearances of inflammation that have been ascribed to 

 various fire-balls, being phaenomena respecting which there 

 may exist some doubt, as they may possibly arise from decep- 

 tions of some kind, it would be unphilosophical to place any 

 reliance upon, in support of the opinion I have advanced; 

 and yet the following instances, among others, seem to have 

 been observed with sufficient accuracy to warrant my bringing 

 them forward as at least collateral evidence. — The meteor seen 

 in Italy, on the 25th of March 1719, is described by Balbus 

 as having been " Globus igneus", a Ball of Fire ; and " appare- 

 bant in eo" he states, " hiatus, sen voragines quatuor J'umum 

 exhalantes\ JJammulce etiam ardentes quamplurimce, quorum 

 alice in ipso globo insidebant, aliceforas emittebanlur*." The 

 meteor which threw down the celebrated shower of stones in 

 the vicinity of Siena in 1794, as described by Soldani, but at 

 too great length to quote on the present occasion, had the 

 strongest appearance of being a flaming body ; the vapour 

 which issued from it giving it the character of a cloud ; as was 

 likewise the case with that which produced the tremendous 

 shower at L'Aigle in 1803. A brisk scintillation, like that 

 of a fire-brand carried against the wind, was observed about 

 the body of the meteor from which descended the shower of 

 stones at Weston, in Connecticut, in 1807. — When the fire- 

 ball beheld in London, on the 13th of November 1803, in- 

 creased in brilliancy, and became ovate in form, about a se- 

 cond or a second and a half before its disappearance, "it 

 seemed," Mr. Firminger states, " as if the meteor had before 

 been covered with one external coat, which now burst or se- 

 parated in the middle the whole length of its longest diameter, 

 and exposed a surface with a brightness far surpassing its 

 lbrmer lustref." This appearance, also, I conceive, could 

 only have been produced by an inflamed body undergoing in- 

 tense combustion. 



The instances of Bolides having a spheroidal form, with the 

 longest diameter in the direction of their motion, are too nu- 

 merous, and too well known, to need recital here; and the 

 inference to be drawn from them, with regard to the nature of 

 the meteors is too obvious to require pointing out. 



Evident proofs of actual and considerable variations i" form 

 as well as in size, are allbrded, I think, by nearly all the de- 

 tailed accounts of huge Fire-balls that have been published: 



* Commenlam liononientet ; tola. i. c. 285. -| Phil. Mag. vol. xvii. p. 279. 



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