When we enter into a careful investigation of
the facts observed at those epochs when showers of shooting stars fell
periodically in Cumana in 1799, and in North America during the years 1833
and 1834, we shall find that 'fire-balls' can not be considered separately
from shooting stars. Both these phenomena are frequently not only
simultaneous and blended together, but they likewise are often found to
merge into one another, the one phenomenon gradually assuming the character
of the other alike with respect to the size of their disks, the emanation of
sparks, and the velocities of their motion. Although exploding smoking
luminous fire-balls are sometimes seen, even in the brightness of tropical
daylight,* equaling in size the apparent
p 113
diameter of the Moon, innumerable quantities of shooting stars have, on the
other hand, been observed to fall in forms of such extremely small
dimensions that they appear only as moving points or 'phosphorescent
lines.'**
[footnote] *A friend of mine, much accustomed to exact trigonometrical
measurements, was in the year 1788 at Popayan, a city which is 2 degrees 26'
north latitude, lying at an elevation of 5583 feet above the level of the
sea, and at noon, when the sun was shining brightly in a cloudless sky, saw
his room lighted up by a fire-ball.
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