|3<2 OBSERTATIONS ON SHOOTWG STARS. 



milar to these are those which are common in clear frosty 

 Avinter nights. Larger ones than these generally attend 

 warm summer evenings, particularly when cirro-cumulus 

 and thunder clouds abound*, with easterly winds. On the 

 Some of ape- joth of last month, a showery day with northerly wind was 

 ance nSed." foJ'owed by a very clear night abounding with small me- 

 teors, but they were of a very peculiar and unusual kind, 

 being of a blueish white colour, like the burning of phos- 

 phorus, and they left long trains behind them, of .the same 

 colour, which lasted for two or three seconds after their ex- 

 tinction. I suppose in the space of an hour I saw above 

 thirty of >hem, but they were all of this kind, and left the 

 long white tails, which remained for some seconds in the 

 tract in which the stars had gone. 

 These have Thesekind ofmeteors are strikingly different from the corn- 



in the deaHiv^ "^^"^ ^'""^ noticed above; I have sometimes seen them be- 

 tervals of fore, but ilthas always been iii the clear intervals of shoivery 

 showery wea- ., ' • . ^i r t- i ... 



ther followed weather, previous to the occurrence of high wind: it was. 



by high winds, probably this sort of meteor to which Virgin alluded as a 



Alluded to by prognostic of windy weather. 

 Virgil. • ° . •' 



Scepe etiam stellas, vento impendente, videbis 



Pr^ecipites coelo labi, noctisque per umbram 



Flanjmarum longos a tergo albescere tractus, 



Georg^lib.ifV. S66. 



A stationary On the evening of the 25th of last June I saw a meteof, 

 which was a perfectly stationary accension, and lasted 

 Scarcely a second; it was followed by many days of damp 

 rainy weather. 



I wish that Meteorologists would note down the peculiar 

 rities observable in meteors in their monthly journals. 



I shall conclude by observing, that, if these considerationt 

 should appear trifling and frivolous to any of your readers, 

 it must be remembered, that it is only by accurate and re- 

 peated observation of a multitude of phenomena, that the 

 science of meteorology can be brought to any degree of per- 

 fection. 



I remain. Sir, yours &c. 

 Clapton, Sept. the 18/A, THOMAS FORSTER. 



1811. 



♦I do not allude to those very large meteors, which occasionally ap- 

 pear : Such for example, as that seen in August, 1783. 



XI. 



meteor. 



