Notice of several Meteors. 323 



esting to those who wish to explore the causes of such phe- 

 nomena. The following observations would have been 

 communicated immediately had I not hoped to obtain oth- 

 ers to compare with them ; but in this I have not suc- 

 ceeded, and I now transmit them with such inferences as 

 they afford; 



Capt. Allen Wardner of Windsor, Vt. states, that on the 

 10th of March, about 10 o'clock In the evening, he was 

 walking along the east side of what is called the tontine 

 building in that village and had just reached the southeast 

 corner, when the first corruscation burst forth. His first 

 thought was that a large barn northwest of the tontine had 

 suddenly burst into a flame, and he hastened on to get a 

 sight of it across the southwest corner of the building, but 

 had not proceeded more than three steps when the body of 

 the meteor came in sight over the south end of the roof, 

 and he had a full view of it for more than 40 degrees mov- 

 ing southwest and descending towards the horizon, until it 

 disappeared behind the ridge of a house forty or fifty rods 

 distant. It was excessively bright, and sparkles were fly- 

 ing from it in all directions and left a dusky reddish track 

 which continued especially about the middle of its length 

 for two minutes. He thought it was nearly round, and its 

 diameter somewhat less than that of a ball which surmounts 

 the dome of the Episcopal Church which v/as near its ap- 

 parent path. 



The village of Windsor is by estimation in lat. 43° 29' 

 Ion. 72° 29'. 1 had no theodolite to determine the azy- 

 muth, but I ascertained the meridian sufiiciently near, as I 

 thought, by the north pole, and measured the sides of a 

 right angled triangle, one angle of which was contained be- 

 tween the meridian and the end of the building, and find- 

 ing the angles by the traverse table, I ascertained that it 

 declined 20° 30' toward the west. The second or third 

 steps taken after the first flash subtended an angle at the 

 west corner of 3° 45', so that the bearing of the meteor 

 when first seen was about north 65° 45' west. Capt. W. 

 had no object by which to regulate his recollections of the 

 altitude, but he fixed on a point the altitude of which J 

 found to be 29° 30'. I determined the azymuth of the me- 

 teor at its disappearance in the same manner, and found it 

 to be, south 67° 30' west, and its altitude 11° 30'. Then 



