STONES FALLING FROM THE AIR, 
249 
ther. They burn in the same manner, and describe their 
course with the same velocity ; and at the same time the di- 
rection in which they approach the earth is no less variable than 
that of the aerolites. Their explosions are also nearly alike j 
and as the meteorolites, especially that of 1772, have been ob- 
served to have a rotation round their centre, the same has also 
been remarked in the globes of fire. 
What deserves the greatest attention is, that these globes of 
fire have, like the aerolites, a rounded form, and are of a gela- 
tinous consistency. In fact, a globe of fire which fell in India 
in 1218 , left, after a tremendous explosion, a large round mass 
of gelatinous matter of considerable firmness. A grey and 
spungy mass of the same description was found at Coblentz, 
after the explosion of a bail of fire*. These remarks are not 
the only ones that have been made of the same kind. Within 
a later period, masses of this description have been seen as 
large as a man’s headf . Silbershlag relates, that he had even 
observed the residue of an ignited globe, which presented a 
gelatinous appearance, and was of a whitish colourf. 
The ignited meteors, improperly called shooting stars , do not Shooting stars 
appear to differ from the globes we are speaking of. And these {^^meaiT 
meteors, like them, leave gelatinous masses, which are errone- the ignited 
ously attributed to birds of prey, because they do not contain 
any thing which indicates an animal origin. But neither the 
ignited globes nor the shooting stars, constantly leave these re- 
sidues, and this fact must depend on their being composed of 
parts entirely combustible, which are consumed by burning 
before they reach the earth. To this class of phenomena we 
may ascribe the globe of fire, which, according to Geoffroy, 
burst in the square of Quesnoy, the 4 th of January, 1717, 
and that which was observed in America in 1800 , and in the 
county of Suffolk in 1802 . 
* Comment, de rebus in scientia naturali et medicin& gestis, tom, 
XXVI, part I, p. 179. 
f Journal de Physique de Gilbert, tom. VI. 
| Theorie der 176?, beobachteten Feuerkugel, Leipzick, 1764. 
Vol. XXXV.— No. 164 . s 
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