34 ON LUMINOUS METEORS. 



planetary bodies may move with immeasurable velocity ; and 

 appeur luininous only when they dip int.; out atmosphere. 

 Shooting stars If we were to accede to all these svppositions, still 1 pre- 

 aud large me- gume it would be impossible without manifest absurdity, to 

 toorsnotthe ,. . i j- ■ -. 



sanip. reier two appearances so distinct and dissimilar as tnstanta- 



neoics shooting stars, and large progressive meteors, to the 

 same cause. 

 Facts contra- But the supposed conditions for the appearancee of lumi- 

 ^i^^u^^l'c r,^ nous meteors are not necessary. Mr. Forster has noticed 

 sumed by Mr. their occurrence not only in clear weather, but " when cirro- 

 ^f^y* - cumulus and thunder clouds abound." Mr. Morgan de- 

 scribed them darting from the vertex of a bright conical 

 stream of the northern lights ; and Beccaria relates mmutely 

 the occurrence of a very remarkable one, an hour after sun- 

 set. 

 Numereus ob- For ten years my attention has been much occupied by 

 the^samTnur- ^^^^^ phenomena ; I have observed many thousands of them 

 pose by the^ nn various situations, and under almost every possible diver- 

 aut ior. g-^y ^£ circumstances. Of the smaller meteors (the shooting 



stars) I have frequently counted 40 and 50 in an hour, in 

 the brightest vioonlight nights of summer. I have neen 

 them when no cloud has been apparent, aiid when the at- 

 mosphere has teemed with clouds ; and have occasionally 

 observed them when the rays of the Sun had scarcely ceased 

 to illumine the atmosphere. 

 Meteors seen ^^ ^^'^ larger progressive meteors I have seen but three ; 

 by him. one of these occurred in bright light, at 6 o'clock on a sum- 



mer's evening. Its motion was apparently rectilinear, and 

 in a hori;=contal direction from east to west. I had an op- 

 portunity of comparing the accounts of several other observ- 

 ers, they nearly coincided with my own observation. The 

 meteor left no visible luminous track, but was followed by 

 a luminous conical tail nearly ihree times the length of its 

 apparent diameter. It left the field of view to which I was 

 a^ confined, without dispersion. The second meteor I observ- 



ed at three o'clock in the morning, in the month of April, 

 1806. It descended in a curve from a considerable height 

 in the north to within an apparently short distance from the 

 ♦ Earth, when it dispersed in luminous particles; it left no 



impression of a lu-oiindus track ; its forrn- was spherical, and 



its 



