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wilder than that which gives the sun its heat by a constant 
shower of meteors, the arrest of whose motion supplies the 
heat lost by the sun by constant radiation ; or the opposition 
theory, which, instead of pelting the sun with meteors, 
accounts for these meteors as masses of vapour escaping from 
the bubbling, boiling surface of the sun, and projected with 
such velocity as to reach the earth after condensation by the 
extreme cold of planetary space. 
The Chairman. — I am sure you will allow me to return thanks to Mr. 
Mitchell for this very interesting and instructive paper. In this age there is 
so great a tendency to attach so much to authority, that it is very valuable to 
see how very little authority is sometimes worth, and how great is our igno- 
rance and how little our knowledge of that which we profess to know very 
well. We shall be glad to hear any gentleman who has any remarks to add 
or suggestions to offer. 
Mr. Reddie. — I think the paper that we have heard this evening (which I 
am sure we have all listened to with much pleasure) is one that scarcely 
admits of discussion. That is one of the disadvantages of having very good 
papers. We had Professor Kirk’s paper at our penultimate meeting, and Mr. 
Mitchell’s paper to-night, both giving us such able discourses on the subjects 
they treat of, that there is nothing left for us to say. (Hear, hear.) Mr. Mitchell 
will complete his paper for our Journal of Transactions , I beg leave to say, 
although the latter part of it was delivered extempore. With reference to 
some of his remarks, I should be very glad if he could collect some of the 
various reports respecting the recent meteoric shower as seen at different 
places. I think they would demonstrate the truth of what he has said as 
regards the uncertainty there must be as to the real heights of those bodies ; 
for the accounts have varied so much that either the witnesses must have 
stated very incorectly what they saw, or else they did not all see the same 
things. If you will take the accounts published in London and different 
parts of England, and others at Malta, you will observe that both as to the 
numbers of the falling stars, and in various other particulars, they do not 
agree with one another. And I think it will yet prove that most probably 
this is an electrical phenomenon, in which there are brilliant scintillations, ail 
more or less tending in one direction. But there is certainly a great discre- 
pancy as to the quantity of those observed ; and I may say even as to then- 
apparent distances from the earth. Even in this country I observe in the 
various accounts in The Times there was a great difference as regards the 
number of the meteors ; and even people in the same house, describing what 
they saw, gave different accounts to one another the next morning. I think 
it is almost impossible to consider that those majestic slow-moving fire-balls 
(one of which I saw two years ago, in November, the only one I have ever 
seen in my life, it was about the size of the moon, and moved in a south- 
westerly direction,) can be considered similar either to those heavy masses cf 
meteoric matter, or to those mere scintillations called falling stars. You 
