453 
and displays so brilliant that it would be said, if such displays occurred in 
England, that these were some of the great periodical exhibitions of falling 
stars, and the whole argument of periodicity would be brought into question 
at once. I think there is a mixing up of these questions of falling stars and 
meteorolites, that are perfectly distinct. With respect to the latter, I 
remember in 1829 being at Malta, when one of them came through 
the roof of the house in which I was. It was associated at the time with 
thunder and lightning ; and a spire of one of the churches was struck. I 
can quite understand that a certain condition of the atmosphere would 
facilitate the formation of these bodies from the elements, as has been sug- 
gested. Captain Maury has mentioned that he has called these bodies 
floating in the atmosphere “tallies a “tally” being a mark a sailor puts 
on a rope, in order that he may know, the particular use to which it is 
appropriated. So Maury terms these “ tallies,” and has thus been enabled 
to mark out the circuits of the winds. Thus by volcanic action these things 
are carried into the upper regions of the atmosphere, above the influence of the 
trade winds, carried along by the upper return current, and then come down 
to windward, having gone against the trade winds apparently, but in reality 
having risen above them. I must say, in justice to Professor Byrne, that he 
may have been a little discursive, but what he was going to say was not 
altogether from the point ; and I did not stop him because he was endeavour- 
ing to show that the fixed stars are not at those extreme distances they are 
imagined to be, and that the sun has not got the motion astronomers assert, 
but that they have mistaken an oscillatory for a direct motion. I think that 
was his object; and I think his remarks were pertinent in this way, because, 
if astronomers err so widely with respect to the distances of heavenly bodies, 
you cannot expect them to be accurate in their suppositions respecting evan- 
escent bodies, as to which Mr. Mitchell said it would be impossible to make 
calculations, and it is mere charlatanism to attempt it. Then, with respect 
to these masses striking the earth, they cannot go with the enormous velocity 
which is supposed, because in all the records concerning them, they are merely 
said to have penetrated a few inches into the earth, which shows that the 
velocity cannot be very great ; and we know that at the trials of rifled guns 
mentioned in The Times , the shot has penetrated the ground for fifteen or 
twenty feet. 
The Eev. Walter Mitchell.— One passed quite through the butt at 
Woolwich recently. 
The Meeting was then adjourned. 
