SHOOTING STARS. 
II I. 
iVo/e ly Luke Howard, Esq. on the Meteors commonly called 
Shooting or Falling -stars, in reference to the Letter from 
John Farey , Sen. Vol. XXXIV. p. 2QQ. 
T HE name of falling-star appears to me to have been 
applied to t : ese meteors, in consequence of their being 
observed to descend from the place of their first appearance 
towards the horizon. This is their usual apparent motion, the 
exceptions, found in large meteors, traversing a great extent of 
horizontal space, may possibly admit of an explanation which 
should reduce the whole to the class of falling bodies, or of 
projectiles analogous to the sky-rocket ; not that I suppose any 
considerable proportion of them to reach the earth in a state of 
aggregation, but rather that they are commonly dissipated in the 
lower atmosphere. 
My observations on these phenomena have not hitherto had 
the advantage of previous concert with another observer at a 
distance : but, such as they are, they tend unequivocally to the 
conclusion, that igneous meteors in general belong to our own 
atmosphere j and come under the class of effects which we call 
electrical. Should John Farey, Sen. or B. Bevan, be willing to 
favour us, and the public, with the detail of their observations 
made in concert on meteors, they may be gratified in turn with 
the reasons on which this conclusion is founded. 
L. HOWARD. 
Tottenham, 
Fourth Month 10, 1813. 
Remarks 
