358 
FALLING SIETE0H9. 
least movement ; and a uniformity of their mixture may have 
taken place in the lapse of ages, unless we believe them to 
possess a repulsive action of which there is no example m 
those substances we can subject to our observations. Far- 
ther, if we admit the existence of particular aerial fluids in 
the inaccessible regions of luminous meteors, of falling-stars, 
bolides, and the Aurora Borealis ; how can we conceive why 
the whole stratum of those fluids does not at once ignite, 
but that the gaseous emanations, like the clouds, occupy only 
limited spaces ? How can we suppose an electrical explosion 
without some vapours collected together, capable of contain- 
ing unequal charges of electricity, in air, the mean tempe- 
rature of which is perhaps 25° below the freezing point of 
the centigrade thermometer, and the rarefaction of which is 
so considerable, that the compression of the electrical shock 
could scarcely disengage any heat ? These difficulties would 
in great part be removed, if the direction of the movement of 
falling-stars allowed us to consider them as bodies with a 
solid nucleus, as cosmic phenomena (belonging to space 
beyond the limits of our atmosphere), and not as telluric 
phenomena (belonging to our planet only). 
Supposing the meteors of Cumana to have been only at 
the usual height at which falling-stars in general move,' the 
same meteors were seen above the horizon in places more 
than 310 leagues distant from each other.* How great a 
disposition to incandescence must have prevailed on the 12th 
November, in the higher regions of the atmosphere, to have 
rendered during four hours myriads of bolides and falling 
stars visible at the equator, in Greenland, and in Germany ! 
M. Benzenberg observes, that the same cause which ren- 
ders the phenomenon more frequent, has also an influence on 
the large size of the meteors, and the intensity of their light. 
In Europe, the greatest number of falling stars are seen on 
those nights on which very bright ones are mingled with very 
small ones. The periodical nature of the phenomenon aug- 
ments the interest it excites. There are months in which 
M. Brandes has reckoned in our temperate zone only sixty 
or eighty falling-stars in one night; and in other months 
* It was this circumstance that induced Lambert to propose the 
observation of failing-stars for the determination of terrestrial longitudes. 
He considered them to be celestial signals seen at grer.t distances. 
