METEORS. 333 



swords, and contending armies. These are generally a 

 great source of terror to the ignorant and superstitious. 

 Though so different in the form they assume from the 

 usual appearance of the northern lights, they are gener- 

 ally to be ascribed to the same cause. 



It is hoped, however, that as science advances, the 

 causes of this phenomenon will be more clearly revealed. 



II. Shooting Stars or Fire Balls. There are other 

 celestial or atmospherical phenomena, differing so entirely 

 from the Aurora Borealis in appearance as to be undoubt- 

 edly different in origin. Fiery Balls shoot with rapidity 

 through the heavens, emitting for a moment a brilliant 

 light, and then becoming suddenly and silently extinguish- 

 ed. Sometimes they burst with a loud explosion and dis- 

 appear, or falling, are extinguished in the ocean or sink 

 deep beneath the surface of the ground. Many of these 

 meteors appear to be of a gaseous nature, which in some 

 unaccountable way are collected and inflamed, and which 

 blaze for a moment and are gone. Whence they came, 

 or whither they go, or by what power impelled, we can- 

 not say. The only knowledge we can have of their exist- 

 ence is from the momentary glitter with which they 

 dazzle the eye. These meteors are seldom of more than 

 a few moments' duration, and sometimes have rivalled the 

 sun in splendor and turned the night into day. They 

 have occasionally been traced from one second to two or 

 three seconds, but are not often of so long existence. 

 They are of various shades and dimensions and of divers 

 colors. But they agree with great uniformity, in their 

 transient appearance, in their velocity and elevation. 

 Their height has been very generally calculated at from 

 fifty to sixty miles above the surface of the earth, and their 

 velocity at from twenty to thirty miles a second. Numer- 

 ous hypotheses have been advanced to account for these 

 extraordinary phenomena. Some have supposed them 

 luminous vapors ; some electrical appearances ; some 

 volcanic substances propelled into the atmosphere by ex- 

 plosions of great violence : others suppose that some of 

 them are of a gaseous nature, fortuitously collected in 

 the atmosphere, and the more compact of them are thrown 

 from volcanos in the moon. None of these theories are 



VOL. I., NO. XIV. 30* 



