VOL. LI.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 387 



height;* that it moved with great velocity from the south-east-}- (about which 

 point he first saw it) towards the n. w. but that he had lost sight of it about the 

 s. w. by the intervention of a building on the opposite side of the street, before 

 it had fallen from its apparent height : that he observed no tail, nor sparks of 

 fire issuing from it ; and heard no noise after the return of darkness. Its ap- 

 parent altitude was about 15°i; and its continuance 6 or 7 strokes of the 

 pulse. 



27. Believing there was a better chance for hearing of its course more to the 

 westward, the following account was given by Dr. Alexander Mackenzie, phy 

 sician in the shire of Ross. Dr. M. was at Flowerdale, a gentleman's house on 

 the western coast of Rosshire, where the view of the heavens is extremely con- 

 fined, being quite surrounded, except at one point, by very high and close- 

 approaching hills ; hence the meteor must have been high before it could be 

 observed, and it quickly disappeared, as its progress was very rapid. Its light 

 was most surprisingly splendent, but not in the least like that of the sun, ex- 

 cept when it shines through a cloud, or a summer shower. Its magnitude 

 was near to that of the full moon, when she is 3 or 4 hours high. Its colour 

 not at all like that of the body of the sun, or an ignited globe, but resembled 

 that of the flame of spirits. Its figure was quite spherical, without any tail ; 

 but it emitted, or, as it were, dropped, sparks of various colours and magnitudes. 

 As for its height, it was nearly vertical ; and its direction was from the west 

 northerly, to the east southerly. 



28. Mr. Cleghorn, author of the natural history of Minorca, writes from 

 Dublin, that though the meteor did most certainly appear at Dublin, as well as 

 in England, yet few people had observed it with attention, and none, that he 

 could hear of, had committed any thing to writing, excepting one Mr. Garret, 

 a good sensible man, with some mathematical learning, whose account he there- 



* If Mr. Simson lost sight of the meteor duly s. w. of him, it must have then been perpendi- 

 cularly over the southern part of the shire of Lanerk, about 66 miles from the observer, and about 

 the nearest he could have seen it any where in its couise. I shall therefore suppose, that it was at 

 its greatest apparent diameter just before it disappeared ; that is, equal to that of the full moon, 

 according to his comparison ; consequently its real diameter was about half a mile, on the like 

 computation with that on Obs. a*. This is the most moderate ; for the meteor might have been 

 considerably larger even from this observation. 



+ Having omitted desiring Mr. Simson to take the bearings with a compass, he has not imagined 

 that I required any greater precision than having the most common points ; but as I find Cambridge 

 laid down in all the maps nearly s. s. e. of St. Andrew's, and as we have no reason to believe the 

 meteor was lighted to the eastward of Cambridge, it is probable Mr, Simson did not see it till it 

 ■was nearer to the south than the s. s. e. But supposing this gentleman saw it at its first setting out, 

 viz. over Cambridge, and duly s. s e. then, from the angle of elevation of 15| deg. the distance 

 between the two places, and an allowance made for the curvature of the earth, the perpendicular 

 height at Cambridge must have been about 1 00 miles. 



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