'Ohap. i :.] Ntiicns of the Ancient;. 4? 5 



inhere. There are alfo ibme phofphoric matters, which 

 will aitb occafionally be rendered volatile, and thefe 

 particles are fupplied in great abundance from all pu- 

 trefcent jubilances, whether animal or vegetable. It 

 has been fhewn, that hydrogen or inflammable air rea- 

 dily combines with fulphur 3 and forms what is called 

 hepatic gas; it will afterwards appear alfo, that it will 

 combine with phofphorus, and the phofphorated hy- 

 drogen gas thus formed is remarkable for , the property 

 of fpontaneoufly inflaming v/hen it comes into contact 

 with atmofpherical air. Thus we are furnilhed with 

 fufficient materials f$r the formation of all the different 

 appearances that ; have juft been enumerated ; and 

 though the matter of the meteors themfelves has, for 4 

 the reafon affigned, jiever been chemically analized, 

 yet from analogy it is not diffipult to judge of their 

 nature and properties. 



Thofe phenomena, which are clafTed together under 

 the general appellation of fire-balls, were divided by 

 the antients into feveral fpecies, according to the ex- 

 ternal form or appearan-ce which they afifumed. They 

 were alfo regarded by them in a mueh more formidible 

 light than they are by us, as the certain prognoltics of 

 great and awful events in the moral and political world. 

 Even the philofophic Cicero fpeaks of the t: ab oc- 

 cidente faces," as the certain harbingers or indications 

 of thole bloody Icenes which in his time ronvulfed and 

 defolated the Ro;r,an commoiiwealtli. 



Under the geoeral name of comets^ Pliny enume- 

 rates .a number of thefe phenomena. . If the fire corrir 

 mences at one extremity of the meteor, and burns 

 by degrees, he terms it, from its form and appearance, 

 R temp, or torch ; if an extended mafs of fire pafles -lon- 

 gitudinally through the atmofphere, he calls it a dart j 

 and if its length and magnitude are confiderable, and it 

 J i maintains 



