408 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 17 IQ. 



clear, was so far effaced as to be scarcely seen, at least not to cast a shade, 

 even where the beams of the meteor were intercepted by the houses; so that 

 for some few seconds of time, in all respects it resembled perfect day. 



The time when this happened was generally reckoned at a quarter past 8; 

 but by the more accurate account of the Rev. Mr. Pound, who only saw the 

 light, agreeing with what has been sent us from the Parisian observatory, it 

 appears to have been at 8^ 8"" apparent time at London. And the sun being 

 then in 94-° of Aries, the right ascension of the mid-heaven was 130° 45', by 

 which the position of the sphere of iixed stars is given. Hence the lucida 

 pleiadum will be found at that time to have been 25^° high, in an azimuth 6" 

 to the northward of the west, and consequently the arch the meteor moved in, 

 was inclined to the horizon with an angle of about 27°, having its node or in- 

 tersection with it, nearly south-south-west, as will be more evident by what 

 follows. 



At Oxford, 5 minutes earlier, Mr. John Whiteside, R. S. Soc. Keeper of the 

 Ashmolean Museum, and very skilful in both mathematical and physical matters, 

 immediately after the extinction of the meteor, made haste out to see what it 

 might be; and well considering the situation of the track it had left in the sky, 

 found it to have passed about l-i-° above the preceding shoulder of Orion, and 

 about 3-^° above the middle of his Belt, where there appeared a luminous nube- 

 cula of a reddish light, being a dilatation of the track, seeming to have been 

 occasioned by some explosion there ; and by what he could learn from those that 

 saw it, it was thereabout that it broke out, and first began to efface the stars. 

 Hence it proceeded as to sense in an arch of a great circle, and passing in the 

 middle between the tail of Lepus, Bayer's 9 and |3 in the fore-foot of Canis 

 Major, it terminated about ^ in the breast of the same, nearly in 95° of right 

 ascension, with 23" south declination, and at the place of its extinction there 

 remained a large whitish nebula, much broader, and of a stronger light, than 

 the rest of the track, which he took for a certain indication of a very great 

 explosion made there. By computation it will be found that the angle this track 

 made with the horizon of Oxford was nearly 40°, and its intersection due S.S.W.; 

 and that the place of its extinction was about 9° above the horizon in the azi- 

 muth of 32° to the west. 



At Worcester, Mr. Nicolas Fatio, a person greatly skilled in astronomical 

 affairs, saw this meteor descend obliquely towards the south, making an angle 

 with the horizon of about 65°, and intersecting it about S.S.W. 4- S. The 

 tract left all Orion and Canis Major to the westward, and divided the distance 

 between Sirius and Procyon, so as to be almost twice as far from Procyon as 



