ene 
2 
230 Dr. BLAGDEN’s Account of 
perceivable in the writings of the ancients*. Whether their | 
motion fhall be from the northern quarter of the heavens or 
toward it, feems nearly indifferent, as the numbers of thofe 
going cach way are not very unequal; I confider them, in the 
former cafe, as mafies of the electric fluid repelled, or burfting 
trom the great collected body of it in the north; and, in the 
Jatter cafe, as mafles attracted toward that accumulation; a 
diftinGion, probably, much the fame in effect, as that of pofi- 
tive and negative electricity near the furface of the earth. 
‘This tendency toward the magnetic meridian, however, | 
feems to hold good only with regard to the largeft fort of fire= 
balls; the {maller ones move more irregularly, perhaps becaufe 
they come further within the verge of our atmofphere, and 
are thereby more expofed to the action of extraneous caufes. 
‘That the fmaller fort of meteors, fuch as fhooting ftars, are 
really lower down in the atmofphere, is rendered very probable 
by their {wifter apparent motion; perhaps it is this very cir= 
cumftance which occafions them to be {maller, the electric 
tions. When we confider that even the meteor of the 18th of Auguft laft was 
thought by /ome {pectators to move fouth-weftward, it will rather appear furprifing 
that fo many of thefe accounts fhould correfpond, than that a few of them fhould 
differ. 
* AristoTLE (Meteor. lib. 1. c. 6.) denies that comets, with which I take 
meteors to be confounded, are generated on/y in the north; which fhews it to 
have been then the prevalent opinion, that they appeared moft frequently in that 
quarter. Adan pany oude Tela aAnbes, are ev Ta W%eos aexloy Tord yivelas 0 Koning 0006 
So likewife Piiny (lib, II. c. 25-) Xiphias, Difceus, Pitheus doliorum cernuntur 
figura, im concavo fumide lucis. Ceratias. Lampadias. Hippeus. Candidug 
Cometes. Omnes ferme /ub ip/o /eptentrione, aliqua ejus parte non certa, fed 
maxime in candida, que lactei circuli nomen accepit. And Seneca (Queft. Nat. 
lib. VII.) Placet ergo noftris, Cometas, ficut Tubas, Trabeique, et alia oftenta 
_ ceeli, denfo are creari. Ideo circa feptentrionem frequentifime apparent, quia illic 
fluid 
plurimum eft aéris pigri, 
