[ 22 J 
III. Answers by Dr. WM. Burney to the Queries proposed by 
Joun Farry, Esq. Sen., in Phil. Mag. for June, respecting 
Shooting Stars and Meteors. 
Gosport Observatory, June 11, }821. 
Sir, — Ix answer toyour Ist Query,—I do not think that so small 
a portion of light as that produced by reflection from the moon to 
our atmosphere, when she is only ove or dwo days old, is “ suffi- 
cient to obscure numerous of the smallest and medium shooting 
Stars.” The moon at that age is too near her conjunction with 
the sun, and the light which she then reflects is fainter than that , 
reflected trom either Jupiter or Venus when they are on the me- 
ridian two or three hours after sunset, at which time these pla- 
netary lights are sufficient to produce shadows of objects on the 
ground ; whereas, it does not appear that the moon’s light at that 
age will do so: yet the rays of Jupiter or Venus, from my obser- 
vations, do not obscure the smallest shooting stars at a distance 
of 30° or 35° from them. The moon from her first to her third 
quarter may afford enough light to obscure the very smallest and 
highest of them, but not the middle-sized meteors that are formed 
Jow in the atmosphere. Indeed, an observation of Dr. E. D. 
Clarke’s is recorded in the 11th volume of the Annals of Philo- 
sophy, pages 273 and 4, of his having been an eye-witness to the 
perpendicular descent of a brilliant meteor to within 15° of the 
horizon, at 2 o’clock P.M. on the 6th of February 18]8, when 
it was opposed to the full rays of the sun in a cloudless sky. The 
Doctor then thought that its appearance was entirely due to the 
heat and light evolved during the transition of the body from the 
aérial form to the solid state. It was seen at Swaffham nearly 
at the same time ; also at Norwich and in Lincolnshire. A large 
meteor of an irregular shape, and perhaps of a similar quality, was 
also seen ii its descent, from a considerable height, apparently to 
the surface of the sea near St. Helen’s in the unobstructed rays 
of the sun at midday, by a gentleman of my acquaintance, while 
he was walking along the shore near Haslar hospital in June 
1816. I also have registered in my Meteorological Observations, 
published in The Naval Chronicle, and, since the discontinuance 
of that work, in Gold’s London Magazine, the appearances of many 
brilliant meteors of the largest sort, while the moon has shone in 
an unclouded sky and nearly at the full. Hence it appears that 
the most perpendicular and unobstructed rays, of both the sun 
and the moon, are not capable of obscuring the largest meteors. 
To the 2d Query I reply,—That with a clear sky, shooting 
stars may be of frequent occurrence at all seasons, and in every 
portion of visible space. But from tolerably attentive observa- 
tions on them during the last four years, their number in the sum- 
nier mouths, compared with that in the winter, is as 4 tol. In 
endeavouring 
