336 



noted it by the nearest festivals of the Church, 

 Unfortunately none of them could recollect 

 the direction of the meteors, or their apparent 

 height. From the position of the mountains 

 and thick forests, which surround the Missions 

 of the Cataracts and the little village of Maroa, 

 I presume that the bolides were still visible at 

 20° above the horizon. On my arrival at the 

 southern extremity of Spanish Guiana, at the 

 little fort of San Carlos, I found some Portu- 

 gueze, who had gone up the Rio Negro from 

 the Mission of St. Joseph of the Marivitains ; 

 who assured me, that in that part of Brazil the 

 phenomenon had been perceived, at least as far 

 as San Gabriel das Cachoeiras, consequently as 

 far as the equator itself *. 



I was powerfully struck at the immense 

 height, which these bolides must have attained, 

 to have been visible at the same time at Cu- 

 mana, and on the frontiers of Brazil, in a line 

 of two hundred and thirty leagues in length. 

 But what was my astonishment, when, at my 

 return to Europe, I learnt, that the same 

 phenomenon had been perceived on an ex- 



* A little to the north-west of San Antonio de Castan- 

 heiro. I did not find any persons, who had observed this 

 meteor, at Santa Fe de Bogota, at Popavan, or in the south- 

 ern hemisphere at Quito and Peru. Perhaps the state of the 

 atmosphere, so changeable in these wester n regions, alone 

 prevented any observation. 



