412 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 17 IQ. 



swiftness wholly incredible,* and such, that if a heavy body were projected ho- 

 rizontally with the same, it would not descend by its gravity to the earth, but 

 would rather fly off, and move round its centre in a perpetual orbit like that of 

 the moon. 



Of several accidents that were reported to have attended its passage, some 

 were the effect of pure fancy; such as the hearing* it hiss as it went along, as 

 if it had been very near at hand: some imagined they felt the warmth of its 

 beams ; and others thought they were scalded* by it. But what is certain, and 

 no way to be disputed, is the wonderful noise* that followed its explosion. All 

 accounts from Devon and Cornwall, and the neighbouring counties, are una- 

 nimous, that there was heard there, as it were the report of a very great can- 

 non, or rather of a broad-side,* at some distance, which was soon followed by 

 a rattling noise, as if many small-arms had been promiscuously discharged. 

 What was peculiar to this sound was, that it was attended with an uncommon 

 tremour of the air, and every where in those counties, very sensibly shook the 

 glass- windows and doors in the houses, and according to some, even the houses 

 themselves, beyond the usual effect of cannon, though near ; and Mr. Cruwys 

 at Tiverton, on this occasion, lost a looking-glass, which being loose in its 

 frame, fell out on the shock, and was broken. We do yet know the extent 

 of this prodigious sound, which was heard, against the then easterly wind, in 

 the neighbourhood of London ; and by the learned Dr. Tabor, who distinctly 

 heard it beyond Lewes in Sussex: so that I cannot help thinking, that such a 

 meteor as this might have occasioned that famous ode of Horace : Parous 



deorum cultor, &c. 



Namque Diespiter 



Igni corusco nubila dividens, 



Plerumque; per purum tonantes 



Egit equos volucremque currum, 

 Quo bruta tellus, &c. Concutitur. 



But whether the report heard near Lewes was of that explosion right over 

 Devonshire, or rather of that latter and much greater at the extinction over 

 Bretany, I shall not undertake to determine, till we have some further ac- 

 counts from France, whence hitherto we have only had, that at Paris the time 

 of the appearance was at 17 minutes past 8. 



It remaitis to attempt something towards a solution of the uncommon phae- 

 nomena of this meteor; and by comparing them with things more familiar to 

 us, to show at least how they might possibly be effected. And first the un- 

 usual and continued heats of the last summer in these parts of the world, may 



• All these circumstances appear to bo neither incredible nor imaginary. See the notes in p. 108, 

 ke. of this volume. 



