436 SPECIAL RESULTS IN THE URANOLOGICAL 



that of Hradschina, in the Agram district, 26th of May, 

 1751. 



The question whether, in shooting stars, any substance 

 falls to the earth, has been much discussed, and opposite 

 opinions have been entertained. The straw-thatched roofs 

 of the Commune of Belmont (Departement de 1'Air, Arron- 

 dissement Belley), which were set on fire by a meteor on the 

 night of the 13th of November (the epoch, therefore, of the 

 November phenomenon), were ignited, it would appear, not 

 by the fall of a shooting star, but by a bursting fire-ball, 

 which, from the account given by Millet d'Aubenton, is 

 supposed, (though this is uncertain,) to have let fall aerolites. 

 A similar conflagration, occasioned by a ball of fire, hap- 

 pened on the 22d of March, 1846, at 3 in the afternoon, in 

 the Commune de St-.Paul, near Bagnere de Luchon. The 

 fall of stones which took place at Angers on the 9th of June, 

 1822, was, on the other hand, attributed to a fine shooting 

 star seen near Poitiers. This phenomenon, which has 

 not been described with sufficient fulness, deserves the 

 greatest consideration. The falling star in question resem- 

 bled much what are called Roman Candles in fireworks. It 

 left behind a straight train or streak, very narrow in the 

 upper, and very broad in the lower part ; of great bright- 

 ness, and lasting ten or twelve minutes. Sixty-eight miles 

 north of Poitiers an aerolite fell, accompanied by loud deto- 

 nations. 



Do the substances of which the shooting stars consist 

 always burn or consume in the outermost strata of the 

 atmosphere, whose refracting power is shewn by the phseno- 

 mena of twilight ? The different colours exhibited, as men- 

 tioned above, during the process of combustion, appear to 



