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XXXII. AN ESTIMATE 
OF THE HEIGHT, DIRECTION, VELOCITY AND MAGNITUDE or 
THE METEOR, THAT EXPLODED OVER WESTON IN 
CONNECTICUT, DECEMBER 14, 1807. 
With methods of calculating observations made on such bodies. 
By NATHANIEL BOWDITCH a.m. a.a.s. 
and member of the Philosophical Society held at Philadelphia. 
me gs 
THE extraordinary meteor which appeared at Weston in crak 
ticut on the. fourteenth of December 1807, and exploded with several 
dudes ‘of stones, having excited great attention throughout the U- 
nited States, and being one of those phenomena of which few exact 
observations are to be found in the history of physical science, I 
have thought that a collection of the best observations of its appear- 
ance at different places, with the necessary deductions for determin- 
ing as accurately as possible, the height, direction, velocity, and mag- 
nitude of the body, would not be unacceptable to the Academy, since 
facts of this kind, besides being objects of great curiosity, may” be 
useful in the investigation of the origin and nature of these meteors ; 
and as the methods of making these calculations’are not fully explain- 
ed in any treatise of trigonometry, common in this country, I have 
given the solutions of two of the most necessary problems, with ex- 
amples calculated at full length. The second problem is not (to my 
knowledge) given in any treatise of spherics. .. The observations of 
the meteor, which after many inquiries, were found to have been 
made with sufficient accuracy to be introduced im the present investi- 
Sahih were those Bits ge Wenham about seven miles abhi a ter] 
iit vide ic 
; i 5 
ee A Be tet. e Pate 
