388 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [anNO 17 5Q. 



fore sent as follows, kept by that person ; and to which was subjoined an answer 

 to some queries that had been put to him concerning that body. Here is given 

 the paper, of which the following is the substance. 



Fifteen minutes past 8 in the evening, a globe of fire about 17° high, due 

 east, moved from south to north, as large in appearance as the moon, but more 

 of a golden colour ; it broke and dispersed, like a starry rocket, in small bright 

 sparkles, nearly before the wind, or as if they passed away with the wind. 



XXfJI. Remarks on the several Accounts of the Fiery Meteor (ivhich appeared 



on Sunday the 26th of November, 1758,J and on other such Bodies. By 



John Pringle, M. D., F. R. S. p. 259- 



First, as to the path of the meteor. This meteor seems to have been vertical 

 at Cambridge, or nearly so, and to have taken fire about the zenith of that 

 place ; or at least to have appeared first there in a state of ignition. Thence it 

 proceeded directly, almost n. w. by n. over several counties in England, over 

 the Solway frith, which it crossed between Carlisle and the town of Dumfries ; 

 and in Scotland over the shires of Dumfries and Lanerk : but soon after its be- 

 coming vertical to the last, viz. a few miles to the southward of Douglas (or 

 perhaps nearer to the borders of Lanerk and the shire of Air, about 10 or 12 

 miles to the eastward of Auchenleck,) part of the tail seemed to break off, and 

 to disperse in bright sparks of fire ; while the head, into which the remainder 

 of the tail was instantly collected, moved on in the same direction, till coming 

 over Fort William, in the shire of Inverness, after a course of about 400 miles, 

 it there suddenly disappeared. But, notwithstanding the extinction of the me- 

 teor at this place, it seems still to have proceeded northwards ; since it was seen 

 again in a luminous state, in a globular form, but without a tail, about the 58° 

 of latitude, on the western coast of the shire of Ross, almost vertical to the ob- 

 server ; moving then to the southward of the east ; that is, in a direction almost 

 contrary to the first : and in this last course, of which we know not the end, it 

 possibly might have gone a great way to the eastward. 



During the first part of its progress, viz. from Cambridge to Fort William, 

 it went obliquely downwards in such a manner, that, by computation, it must 

 have been from about QO to 100 miles high at the first of these places, and be- 

 tween 26 and 32 miles at the last. But at what height it was afterwards seen in 

 the shire of Ross, is not to be determined, since one observation only was trans- 

 mitted from that country. As Dr. Mackenzie observed it nearly over his head, 

 and yet of a smaller size than the full moon when some hours above the liorizon, 

 perhaps after its descent to Fort William, it had reascended at the time he saw 

 it; because he probably would have described it as a larger body, if then not 

 higher than when it first disappeared. 



