184 Mr. Farey on Shooting Stars and Meteors. 
ful perusal of which I perceive, with regret, that when draiving’ 
up those Queries, and in some other papers which I have written 
on the subject, 1 have not been sufficiently on my guard, to ex- 
pressly exclude from my description, of those Shooting-stars and 
Meteors seen high in the Atmosphere (to which I have been de-: 
sirous of aséribing a satellitic origin) those lower, fiery appear- 
ances, locally and occasionally seen in the Air, to which some 
observers’ attention is directed, and which they think to arise 
from gaseous exhalations from the Earth; amongst which class 
of phrenomena, the ignis fatuus is an undoubted instance. Others 
have called in the aid of Electricity, to account for other lumi- 
nous atmospheric appearances, citing, and perhaps truly, the 
aurora borealis, as one of the same class of phenomena with 
Lightning, especially that which on sultry evenings, sometimes 
appears almost incessant and universal, yet unaccompanied by 
thunder. 
I seem to have been mistakenly supposed by Dr. B. to main- 
tain, that not any Meteors are visible in full moon-light; whereas 
I believe many fiery appearances in the Atmosphere, besides 
Lightning, including some Meteors which have been in the act of 
exploding and throwing down Meteorolites, to have been seen in 
full day-light: and yet maintain this to be; noways inconsistent 
with the opinion, that real Shooting-stars of the smaller classes, 
are rendered invisible, by very small degrees of extraneous light in 
their vicinity, whether such be from bright planets, or from the 
Moon almost ever so near her change ; ‘such obscuration of the’ 
faint light of small Shooting-stars, extending considerably further 
round the one-day’s Moon, much further yet around the two-days 
Moon, and in a short time afterwards in the lunation, whenever 
the Moon is above the horizon, the smaller Shooting-stars may 
in vain be watched for, in any part of atmospheric space. 
There are resident in the Country, many curious Gentlemen, 
who have it in their power to procure the assistance of two and 
occasionally of a third steady person (such for instance as their 
domestics or clerks) in the first two or three hours after dark, in 
the Evenings which may prove free from general clouds; whe 
are provided with a good pendulum Clock, which by a transit or 
other Instrument they have the means of regulating, and also 
with a Watch carrying a second’s Hand : and who either possess 
or could make a large Planisphere, in portions overlapping each 
other, and depicting the smaller Stars, of such a zone of the 
heavens, as within the course of a year passed in convenient view, 
from some window of their-House, adapted for the scene of Stellar 
observations, 
To the zeal of such Gentlemen for the extension of knowledge, 
I beg to address myself, and to request the favour of their con-_ 
currence, 
