Some late fiery Meteors. 229 
But, in my opinion, the moft remarkable analogy of all, 
and that which tends moft to elucidate the origin of thefe me- 
teors, is the direction of their courfe, which feems, in the 
very large ones at leaft, to be conftantly from or toward the 
north or north-weft quarter of the heavens, and iideed to ap- 
proach very nearly to the prefent magnetical meridian. 'Fhis 
is particularly obfervable in thofe meteors of late years whofe 
tracks have been afcertained with moft exactnefs; as that of 
November 26, 1758, defcribed by Sir Joun Prinere; that 
mrpby i 7; 1771, treated’ of by* Me Le lRoyi;and)this of 
the 18th of laft Auguit. The largeft proportion of the other 
accounts of meteors confirm the fame obfervation, even thofe 
of a more early period *; nay, I think, fome traces of it are 
: per- 
p- 221. There is now working with Mr. Nairne F.R. S. a perfon of the 
name of ARNOLD, who refided feven years at Hudfon’s Bay, the laft three at 
*Fort Healey. He confirms M. GmeEutn’s account of the fine appearance and 
brilliant colours of the northern lights, and particularly of their rufhing: noife, 
which he affirms he has very frequently heard, and compares it to the found pro- 
‘duced by whirling round a ftick {wiftly at the end of a ftring. He adds, that-on 
converfing about this matter with a Swedifh watch-maker of the name of Linn, 
that perfon affured him, that he had heard a fimilar noife in his own country. 
Mr. Nairne too, one time, at Northampton, when the northern lights were 
remarkably bright, is confident he perceived a hifing or whizzing found. 
This hiffing or rufhing noife, as well as that attending meteors in-their paffage, 
fuppofing it in both cafes to be real, I would attribute to fmall ftreams of electric 
matter, running off to the earth from the great maffes or accumulations of elec= 
tricity, by which I fuppofe both meteors and the northern lights to be produced. 
Compare M. pe Mairan’s Traité de l’Aurore Boréale, p. 126. 
* See Phil. Tranf. and Mem. de l’Acad. des Sciences, &c. I have found, of 
an earlier or later period, accounts of more than 40 different fire-balls. Of 
thefe above 20 are fo defcribed, that it is certain their courfe was in the above- 
mentioned direction; only 3 or 4 feem to have moved the contrary way; and with 
egard to the remainder, it is left doubtful, from the imperfedt flate of the rela- 
tions.. 
