THE 

 LONDON, EDINBURGH and DUBLIN 



PHILOSOPHICAL MAGAZINE 



AND 



JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 



[THIRD SERIES.] 



FEBRUAR Y 1848. 



A 



XIII. On Shooting Stars, By Sir J. W. Lubbock, Bart."^ 



S I am not aware that any attempts have as yet been 

 made to explain the cause of the sudden disappearance 

 of shooting stars, I venture to offer the following remarks. 



A minute brilliant spot of light is seen to traverse a portion 

 of the heavens with great rapidity, it then disappears, often 

 very suddenly. 



Three hypotheses may be used to account for this most 

 curious phaenomenon. 



1. The body shines by its own light, and then explodes 

 like a sky-rocket, breaking into minute fragments too small 

 to be any longer visible to the naked eye. 



2. Such a body having shone by its own light, suddenly 

 ceases to be luminous. 



" The falling stars, and other fiery meteors which are fre- 

 quently seen at a considerable height in the atmosphere, and 

 which have received different names according to the variety 

 of their figure and size, arise from the fermentation of the 

 effluvia of acid and alkaline bodies which float in the atmo- 

 sphere. When the more subtile parts of the effluvia are burnt 

 away, the viscous and earthy parts become too heavy for the 

 air to support, and by their gravity fall to the earth." — Keith's 

 Use of the Globes. According to Sir Humphry Davy, in 

 the Philosophical Transactions for 1817, "the luminous ap- 

 pearances of shooting stars and meteors cannot be owing to 

 any inflammation of elastic fluids, but must depend upon the 

 ignition of solid bodies." 



3. The body shines by the reflected light of the sun, and 



• Communicated by the Author. 



1 do not lierc pretend to treat of such a meteor as that I described in 

 the Philoso|)hical Magazine, vol. xxx. p. 4 ; see also vol. xxxi. p. 368. The 

 phaEnoniena which it presented were very different from those usually pre- 

 sented by shooting stars, and may have arisen from its meeting with the re- 

 sistance of the earth's atmosphere. 



Phil. Man. S. 3. Vol. 32. No. 213. Feb. 184.8. G 



