Some late fery Meteors. . 225 
r. Electricity moves with fuch a prodigious velocity, as to 
elude all the attempts hitherto made by philofophers to deteét 
it; but the fwiftnefs of meteors, {tating it at zo miles a fe- 
cond, is fuch as no experiments yet contrived could have dif- 
covered, and which feems to belong to electricity alone. This 
is, perhaps, the only cafe in which the courte or direction of 
that fluid is rendered perceptible to our fenfes, in confequence 
of the large {cale on which thefe fire-balls move. 
2. Warious eleétrical phenomena have been feen attending 
meteors. Lambent flames are defcribed as fettling upon men, 
horfes, and other objects*; and {parks coming from them, or 
the whole meteor itfelf, it is faid, have damaged fhips, houfes, 
é&c. in the manner of lightning +. Thefe facts, I muft own, 
are but obfcurely related, yet ftill they do not feem to be defti- 
tute of foundation. If there be really any hifling noife heard 
while meteors are pafling, it feems explicable on no other fup- 
pofition than that of ftreams of eleGtric matter iffuing from 
them, and reaching the earth with a velocity equal to that of 
the meteor, namely, in two or three feconds. Accordingly, 
in one of our late meteors, the hifling was compared to that of 
eleCtricity iffuing from a conductor {. The {parks flying off fo 
‘ perpetually 
* PrisstLey’s Hiftory of Eleétricity, p. 352. Mem. de l’Acad. des Scienc. 
1771, p. 681, 682. See an odd fact, perhaps of this nature, in PARKER’s 
General Advertifer, Dec. 1, 1783. 
+ Mem. anc. de l’Acad. de Dijon, tom. I. Hit. p, 42. Phil. Tranf. vol. 
XLVI. p. 366. Hift. de l’Acad. des Scienc. 1761, p. 23. 
t Chefter Weekly Courant, Auguft 26, 1763. This and many other cu- 
rious circumftances, relative to meteors, are fo well exemplified in the follow- 
ing obfervation, made feveral years ago by Mr. Rosinson at Hinckley in Lei- 
cefterflhire, that I think it worth tranfcribing here, efpecially as it occurs ina 
work which few people would think of confulting on fuch a fubje&. ‘* OG. 26, 
** 1766, at half paft five in the evening, after a violent ftorm of wind and rain, 
_ Mor, LXXIV. Gg ee 
