The purple haze was indeed past, but the light air that still blew was of heat to threaten suffocation; nor was I free from an asthmatic affection, proceeding from the small quantity of that enflamed air imbibed by me, until nearly two years after."

IGNEOUS METEORS.

In the tropical climates, igneous meteors are more common, and more splendid, than in the temperate zones. Don Ulloa gives an impressive description of one which he saw, when he was at Quito in Peru. "About nine at night," says he, a globe of fire appeared to rise from the side of the mountain Pichincha, so large and brilliant that it diffused light over all the parts of the city opposite to that mountain. It continued its career from west to south, until it disappeared behind another mountain. Its figure was spherical; its apparent diameter about one foot. In the first half of its visible course, it emitted a prodigious effulgence, which gradually faded.' Meteors of this kind, astonishingly large and dazzling, and often bursting with an amazingly loud explosion, are most frequent in the equatorial regions; but they have been seen likewise in other parts of the world. History presents to us various accounts of such phenomena. At Bononia, in Italy, a very extraordinary meteor exhibited itself in the air, by computation, thirty miles above the surface of the earth, apparently twice the diameter of the moon one way, and as broad the other; so that,

considering its vast height, it could not have been less than a mile long and half a mile in breadth. This great body of ignited vapour travelled westward with a most rapid course, at the rate of a hundred and sixty miles a minute; and having traversed Italy, finally passed off towards the Adriatic. In its whole progress, wherever it approached, a hissing noise was heard, resembling that of a firework. At length it exploded over the sea, with a sound much louder than the report of a cannon, which was immediately succeeded by another sound like the rattling of heavy carts on a paved road.

In the month of August, 1783, a wonderful meteor appeared, which was seen in all parts of Great Britain, at Paris, at Nuits in Burgundy, and even at Rome. When it first rose, its figure was round; but, as it ascended, it became elliptical, and expanded into a tail. In one part of its course, it seemed to undergo a remarkable change, similar to bursting; after which, it proceeded no longer as an entire mass, but was apparently divided into a cluster of balls of different magnitudes, all together, leaving a train behind. The body of this fire-ball, even before it separated into distinct parts, did not exhibit a uniform brightness, but contained lucid and dim spots, constantly changing their respective positions, exhibiting the appearance of internal agitation or boiling matter. It is supposed to have described a track of a thousand miles, at least, over the earth's surface; to have varied its height from fifty to sixty miles; and to have burst and re-united several times before its final

explosion. Judging from its elevation, the bulk of this meteor is conjectured to have been not less than half a mile in diameter; and its velocity is supposed to have been not less than forty miles in a second.

In the November of the year 1749, as an officer on board the Montague man-of-war, then at sea, was taking an observation, one of the quarter-masters called aloud and hastily to him, to look to windward. On directing his eye that way, he observed a large globe of blue fire, at the distance of about three miles from the ship. The topsails were immediately lowered; but the meteor came so fast upon them, that before they could raise the main-tack, the fire-ball was seen to rise almost perpendicularly, not above forty or fifty yards from the main-chains, when it exploded with a noise and percussion as violent as if hundreds of cannon had been discharged together; at the same time, diffusing a strong sulphureous smell. By this shock, the maintop-mast was shattered to pieces, and the mainmast rent quite down to the keel. Five men were beaten down by the force of the explosion.

BALLOONS.

IN the year 1766, Cavendish discovered that inflammable air, or hydrogen gas, is seven times lighter than common air; and thence it was concluded, that if a globe, made of a material sufficiently light and thin, were filled with that gas, it would necessarily rise. While the art of

aërostation seemed thus upon the point of being discovered in Britain, two brothers of the name of Montgolfier, paper manufacturers at Annonay, in France, distinguished themselves by exhibiting a balloon of considerable magnitude; the internal air of which being rarified by heat, and thus being rendered lighter than the atmospheric air, it ascended to a considerable height. Soon after, the philosophers at Paris effected the same purpose. The first person who ascended into the atmosphere by means of a balloon, was Pilatre de Rozier; who afforded this wonderful spectacle to the astonished populace of Paris. In September, 1784, Lunardi, an Italian, ascended from the Artillery Ground, London; and, during the course of his voyage, the thermometer was so low as 29°, and the drops of water which adhered to the balloon were frozen. Novelty made the sight grand and interesting, which became still more impressive from the universal sentiment of terror excited by the danger incurred by the person thus exposing himself. A delicate female was so overcome by it that she died upon the spot, terrified into convulsions; several fainted, and the admiration of the anxious multitude was indescribable. The most daring of all aërial voyages was performed by Blanchard and Jeffries, across the straits of Dover to France, in January, 1785. About noon the balloon was launched near Shakspeare's Cliff. As there was little wind, their progress was very slow; but the prospect of the southern coast of England, which unfolded itself to their view, and that of the

French coast displayed before their eyes, were most beautiful and magnificent. They threw out a bottle from their car; from which, in its descent, issued a steam like smoke with a rushing noise, and when it struck the water, made a shock which affected the balloon, and was sensibly felt by the aëronauts. They passed over the high lands between Cape Blanc and Calais; the machine attaining a greater elevation than it had done during the other part of its flight. Finally, it descended in safety in the forest of Guiennes.

Pilatre de Rozier saw the sun rise twice in the course of the same day. A phenomenon which, probably, before him no mortal ever witnessed. At the conclusion of one of his airy expeditions, he descended in a wood, just at the close of day, and found that to the inhabitants of the valley, the sun had set. A sudden thought arose in his mind, that he might obtain a sight of the sun once more, before that glorious luminary finally disappeared from our hemisphere. He desired the peasants, who surrounded and held the balloon, to let go their grasp. Then, throwing out all his ballast, he mounted into the atmosphere with vast rapidity, and in a few minutes was cheered by the beams of the star of day; while the country beneath was involved in the shades of darkness. To him, as he ascended, the sun must have appeared to be rising again, with a celerity equal to that of his real movement. But this undaunted philosopher lost his life, together with his friend and companion, Romain, in an experiment undertaken with the intention