118 OP METEORS. CHAP. 3. 



it. I may also remark, that if the larger kind 

 of Meteors happen at the same time that these 

 caudate Meteors are prevalent, they also leave 

 this beautiful white and slowly evanescent tail 

 behind them.* 



* The train of light which the common Meteors, or falling 

 stars, appear to leave behind, and which lasts scarcely a 

 moment, seems frequently to be an hallucination of vision, 

 like the AoAocotrxov ryyjis sung by Homer, and quoted by 

 Dr. Darwin, ZOOM. sect. iii. v. 3. To which as well as to his 

 paper, De Oculorum Spectris, I refer the reader. M. Aubert 

 observed a train of reddish fire left behind the bright Meteor 

 seen at London, Oct. 4, 1783, which lasted above a minute 

 after the Meteor was extinguished. See Phil. Trans, vol. 

 Ixxiv. 115. 



The great Meteor of 18th August, 1783, left corruscations 

 behind it, and moved in an irregular tract. See Phil. Trans. 

 Ixxiv. 114. 



There are some reasons for thinking that the explosion and 

 loud report of some Meteors, and particularly of the great one 

 of 1783, happen at the alteration of their regular course, as 

 if interruption by explosion of hydrogen, which the Meteor 

 might meet with in its passage, or from any other cause, 

 caused the report, and division of the luminous substance of 

 the Meteor. See Phil. Trans. Ixxiv. 20. 



There is one remarkable thing about the explosion of 

 Meteors. The great Meteor of 1718 w , according to Halley, 

 above sixty miles from the earth's surface ; and yet at that 

 elevated station the air was capable of communicating sound, 

 as appears clear by the report of the Meteor : a circumstance 



