VOL. LI v.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 123 



possible. This he at first took to be lightning; but, looking up, presently dis- 

 covered the cause of it, which was a large meteor moving almost in the meridian 

 from south to north. The body of it was very bright, and left behind it several 

 sparks or lesser balls of light. When he first saw it, it was not far from the 

 zenith ; whence it moved, not very swiftly, till at about the height of 30° above 

 the horizon it expired. In about 2™, it was followed by a hollow rumbling noise, 

 pretty loud, and so much like remote thunder, that several persons in their 

 houses, who did not see the meteor, took it to be thunder, as others within 

 doors, who saw only the flash, and not the body of the meteor, thought it 

 lightned. But as there was no thunder nor lightning before or after, nor any 

 clouds likely to produce them, he questions not but this report was oc(hisioned 

 by the explosion of the meteor. And this is confirmed by the great extent of 

 this sound, which was heard in several places above 80 miles distant from each 

 other. And hence, as well as from the length of time between the light and the 

 noise, it may be collected that the meteor must have been very high in the at- 

 mosphere. 



2. A meteor was seen on the 24th of November 1742, in the southern parts 

 of New England. In New Haven, in Connecticut, one man saw a ball of fire 

 about 4 or 6 inches in diameter, passing along from the south-west to the north- 

 east, and a stream of white, bright, and clear fire followed it, of nearly the same 

 size, and of considerable length. Then the ball broke into sundry small pieces, 

 and vanished with a kind of flash; and a full minute after he heard a noise, much 

 like that of rumbling thunder, and about as long again as a clap of thunder 

 usually is. — Sundry people at Rehoboth, in this province (Massachusets) saw a 

 ball of about a foot diameter, toward the west from them, and it fell to the 

 ground. — At New London, in Connecticut, the stream of fire appeared in the 

 north or north-west; and some who were off at sea, near New London, took 

 the noise' to be from great guns at New London battery. — Mr. Clap obser\'es, 

 that though the informations he had received differ as to particular circumstances, 

 thus much in general seems to be certain, that people in most, if not all the 

 towns between Norwalk, near the west end of Connecticut, and Braintree near 

 Boston, which is at least 200 miles, heard an unusual noise in the air, like 

 thunder or the discharge of a cannon ; and sundry people, in most places, about 

 a minute or more before the noise, saw a ball or stream of fire in the air, moving 

 in some form or other. 



3. A meteor was seen on the 4th of May 1760, at Newfoundland. The de- 

 position of James Cawley, master of the sloop Content, taken before Michael 

 Gill, Esq. one of his majesty's justices of the peace for the district of St. John's, 

 Newfoundland, says, that coming from the banks of Newfoundland for this har- 

 bour of St, John's, being Sunday the 4th instant, about a quarter before 12 



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