134 Weston Meteorite of Dec. 14, 1807. 
therefore make no further use of his testimony. There are, how- 
ever, two considerations which may throw some light on this 
" point. 
1. The meteor if a satellite, must have moved with a velo- 
city greater than three and a half miles per second, because if it 
did not, the earth’s attraction would soon have brought the whole 
mass to the ground. But it is certain that much the greater portion 
passed on. In order to have done this, through the air, at the 
height of eighteen miles, it must have had a velocity not less 
than five miles per second. ? 
2. According to Mr. E. Staples, (one of the observers at West- 
on,) “when the meteor disappeared, there were apparently three 
successive efforts or leaps of the fire-ball which grew more dim 
at every throe, and disappeared with the last.”* Soon after the 
meteor disappeared, were heard three principal heavy reports, 
which “succeeded each other with as much rapidity as was col- 
sistent with distinctness, and all together, did not occupy three 
seconds.” Professors Silliman and Kingsley, who thoroughly 
examined the region where the stones fell, a few days after the 
event, say, “ We think we are able to point out three principal 
places where stones have fallen, corresponding with the three 
loud cannon-like reports, and with the three leaps of the me 
teor.” The account given by Mr. Isaac Bronson, of an investiga 
tion made Dec. 19, 1807, by himself and Rev. Horace Holley, 
confirms this position. 
(1.) The most northerly fall was in Huntington, on the border 
of Weston, near the house of Mr. Merwin Burr. (2.) The see 
ond principal deposit was near the house of Mr. William Prince 
“in Weston, distant about five miles in a southerly direction 
from Mr. Burr’s.” (3.) The third and probably the largest col- 
lection, fell near the house of Mr. Elijah Seeley, “at the dis 
tance of about four miles from Mr. Prince’s.” 
Although it is not certain that these several masses came i0 the 
same direction from the meteoric body, yet until the contrary 4P” 
pears, it may, not unfairly, be assumed that they did; an ° 
sequently the interval of space at which they struck the earth, 
, ke 
* Observers in Wallingford, Meriden, Cheshire, &c., “ all agree that its motion 
was not uniform either in velocity or direction, but that it seemed to bound, of ” 
one of them expresses it, to move scolloping.” Ch. Mo. Mag., v. 36. This ni 
probably due to the resistance of the air, which, in such cases, must be exceedingly 
great. 
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