tSfc PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIOKS. [aNNO 1 76^, 



-and that of the common kind; yet, by the gradual variation of its original posi- 

 tion, seemed to have commenced a sort of aurora australis. 



Being in his parlour, with the sashes down, on Saturday, September 9, 1769, 

 at 8*^ 20™ p. M., Mr. S. observed, with no small degree of astonishment, through 

 the glass, such a redness in the sky as proceeds from the reflection of a great 

 fire. This he was at first inclined to consider as a sort of deception, occasioned 

 by the glass through which so uncommon an object seemed to present itself to 

 his view, but stepping out immediately into the yard, he found it to be a real 

 appearance, resembling a flame, in the atmosphere, and consequently a very un- 

 usual sight. The meteor was, however, of no very considerable extent; being 

 almost entirely confined to that small tract of the heavens occupied by Ursa 

 Major, part of Ursa Minor, and the intermediate space, containing the tail of 

 Draco, between those 2 constellations. It remained about 20™ after he first 

 discovered it, without any material change, or variation ; and at 8*' 40"" almost 

 instantly disappeared. 



The wind on the Qth was, for the most part, w. and s. w. and the weather 

 showery. The rain, however, notwithstanding the favourable situation of the 

 wind, was somewhat cold, and the whole day had a lowering winterly aspect. A 

 small shower fell, just before he discovered the phenomenon here described. The 

 light cast by it was nearly equal to that of the full moon on a cloudy night. 

 The 10th the wind continued in the same quarter as before; and the weather 

 was much the same, attended by a disagreeable chillness in the air, as that of 

 the preceding day. All the principal stars of the above-mentioned con- 

 stellations very clearly and distinctly appeared, through the seemingly fiery 

 vapour, with which the tract occupied by them was so strangely and so remark- 

 ably tinged. 



As the luminous appearance seen at London, between 8 and 9 o'clock, the 

 same night, from the short account given of it in one of the public papers, 

 seems to have agreed in all respects with that observed at Oxford, at the very 

 same time, it may be considered, without any impropriety, as the very meteor 

 here described. Admit this, and it must be allowed, that the atmosphere was at 

 London in the same disposition, with regard to the exhibition of this species of 

 meteors, as at Oxford, the very same instant of time; and impregnated in both 

 places with the same kind of luminous vapour, at that instant, which occa- 

 sioned the production of the phenomenon he has here been endeavouring to 

 describe. 



h. Observations of the Transit of Fenus, June 3, 1769, and the Eclipse of the 

 Sun on the following Day, made at Paris, and other Places. Extracted from 



