must have been a body of immense size; for its distance was, manifestly, very considerable.

Its descent, many imagined, was in a right line perpendicular to the horizon. But this could not have been. It probably fell in a parabolic curve, or in a figure approaching such a curve. Its velocity we are unable correctly to compute. The celerity of its movement was so great, that no person, with whom we have conversed, has ventured to estimate the length of time, during which it was visible. It could not have been, at most, more than a very few seconds.

We have heard its appearance compared to that of iron in a furnace, the instant it is beginning to fuse. Some say, its light was somewhat different from that afforded by melting iron, but that it was more brilliant. Three explosions took place, while the meteor was in the heavens. The report was so loud as to be heard by most of the people in this village. The houses were jarred as they are by a slight earthquake. The sound was thought, by some, to resemble that of heavy thunder. By others it was compared to the noise of three cannon discharged in quick succession.

A little before the explosions occurred, or rather before the report was heard, a brisk scintillation, or sparkling, of the meteor was observed. Particles proceeded from the body, and continued luminous till they had arrived at considerable distance from it, but gradually growing less and less vivid, till they disappeared. Many individuals saw the light, who did not see the meteor.

A gentleman belonging to Whiting, states, that he witnessed the phenomenon, during its passage from near the zenith, till it was totally extinguished; that he saw it three times, violently agitated, so, to use his own language," as to turn over;" that, at each agitation, or leap, its bulk diminished, and that shortly after the third, the luminary wholly disappeared; that, at the time of these agitations, an unusual quantity of light was emitted, and that, in about fifteen minutes, as he believed, after the agitations, he heard three distinct reports. It was probably the light sent forth at the second explosion, which was observed by the gentleman mentioned, who was standing in his garden. He also heard the report, but imagined, that not more than three minutes intervened between the flash and the time the sound reached his ear. Other gentlemen of this village suppose, that the intervening time could not have been short of five minutes.

Though the motion of this, as well as all other meteors, is rapid (and they have been seen to move one thousand miles in a minute,) it is well known that the motion of sound is comparatively slow, passing over less than thirteen miles in a minute. Supposing the intervening time to have been five minutes, the meteor, when it exploded, must have been about sixty-five miles distant from this place. If the interval was

fifteen minutes, its distance must have been about two hundred miles.

We cannot doubt, that, at the moment of the above mentioned agitations, stones, denominated meteoric, were projected from the principal mass, and precipitated to the earth. Such, we believe, is universally the fact with meteors, which explode in the atmosphere. These stones are usually of a globular form, and always covered with a black or deep brown incrustation, composed chiefly of iron. The internal part of the mass is of a grayish colour, and of a coarse, granular texture. Chemical analysis has shown, they are made up principally of iron, sulphur, magnesia, clay, lime, and silex. These stones have fallen in almost every part of the globe, and of all sizes, from that of a pea, to that of a body of several yards in diameter. But one instance of this kind has, to my knowledge, occurred in New-England. This is the teor, which burst over the town of Weston, in Connecticut, in 1807; an excellent account of which was given to the public by Professors Siliman and Kingsley. The body of it was computed to have been not less than twelve or thirteen hundred feet in diameter.

If stones fell from the body, which we have hastily and very superficially described, we are anxious to know where they fell. We hope to hear something on this subject from our friends in the eastern part of this state, or in New-Hampshire. Should we obtain any additional information, which is interesting, relative to this extraordinary celestial visitor, we shall not fail to communicate it to the public. The above is taken from the mouths of those who witnessed the phenomenon. F. HALL.

In the connexion with the above account of professor Hall, we extract the following description of a similar phenomenon that occurred in Ireland.

Account of a Shower of Meteoric Stones which fell in the County of Limerick. Communicated by William Higgins, Esq.

SIR,

To Mr. Tilloch.

I send you a copy of a letter which I have received from a gentleman of the highest respectability, who was an eye-witness to one of the most remarkable showers of meteoric stones on record. This shower fell in the county of Limerick.

The information with which I present you, was in answer to the following queries, which George Tuthill, Esq. of this city was good enough to transmit to his friend in Limerick, soon after the event occurred.

1. Have any persons seen the stones in the act of falling?

2. How soon after the large stones fell were they discovered? and were they hot?

3. Was the fall accompanied by thunder and lightning; and if so, was there but one clap and one flash, or how many ?

&c. But as these speculations are inconsistent with sound philosophy, or even with plausible hypotheses, I shall drop the subject

kere.

It is supposed by Cladini that they never belonged to any planet, and that they were opaque wandering masses, before they reached the confines of our atmosphere. This, certainly, is the most rational mode of accounting for their presence in the situation in which we first behold them in the atmosphere.

However, to account for their becoming Inminous or red hot, when they descend into the upper regions of our atmosphere, regions of eternal frost, has been a desideratum with me, and engaged much of my attention some Lime past.

These masses, like all other ponderable materials, contain specific heat round their atoms and particles; in moving through the atmosphere they collect electricity; and this continues increasing, as there is no other solid matter in those upper regions to prevent its accumulation.* When they acquire a sufficient quantity of electric matter, the entire or a portion of their specific heat is liberated, and much of it is thrown on their sur face; this gives the luminous appearance: as they contain much iron and sulphur, a portion of oxygen unites to their external parts. The degree of heat produced by these diferent circumstances will account for the superficial fused crust which invariably surrounds these substances. It is probable also, that a quantity of electricity collects round those masses, so as to form a considerable and dense atmosphere, and that this electric atmosphere as they move along, keeps the air in contact with them in a constant blaze. These electric stones in descending towards the earth, when they meet a cloud comparatively negative, lose a portion of their electricity; which bursting forth with great vehemence exhibits the phenomena of thunder and lightning; at the same time that they are most commonly shattered into pieces. So soon as this takes place, their luminous appearance ceases, their specific heat resumes its former station, and they are precipitated to the earth, still retaining a considerable degree of heat. The stone that fell in the county of Tipperary could not be touched with the hand some time after its descent.

It is somewhat strange that those meteors should be found to move from E. to W. which is contrary to the motions of the earth; unless it had been occasioned by the electrical explosion, which might have scattered the stones in every direction by its violeuce. It is impossible that such explosions could be produced but by means of electrici

ty; therefore, it appears rather singular that they should not be accompanied with lightring, which is generally the case; but probably the opacity or darkness of the clouds, during the fall in the county of Limerick, rendered it invisible. I am, sir,

Your very humble servant,

W. HIGGINS.

From the Philosophical Magazine.

ON THE KALEIDOSCOPE. This amusement being now in the hands of almost every person, any description, more particular than what will present itself in the subjoined historical detail, will here be unnecessary.

Dr. Brewster, the patentee of this amusing instrument, is charged by many with being a plagiarist, and claiming that, as a new invention of his own, which is really old, and the discovery of another. We shall lay the grounds of this charge before our readers ;and we begin with some remarks which have appeared in the French Journals:

"Scarcely," says one of them, "had the Kaleidoscope been imported into Paris, when twenty competitors started forward, and each, his glass in his band, contended for the attention of the public. To the Kaleidoscope one opposed the Polyoscope; another the Metamorphosiscope; and as the great majority of spectators called out for something French, we saw immediately this wish gratified by the Transfigurateur, the French lamp, &c."

"M. Robertson," a mathematical-instrument maker in Paris, of some eminence, "reclaims for France the priority of this invention. He brings in proof an instrument, of great dimension it is true, but which for many years has furnished in his cabinet the same various pictures which an adroit speculator has introduced into the Kaleidoscope. Thus Professor Brewster of Edinburgh, to whom the English have attributed the honour of this discovery, is nothing more than an imitator. This is not the first time that a French discovery has taken the longest way of arriving at Paris. M. Chevalier too enters the lists; holding in one hand a work, published more than fifty years ago, in which the principle of this agreeable illusion is described, while in the other he presents us a lamp which, by adding much to the magic of the effects, merits truly the name which he gives it of the French Multiplicator.”

However mortifying it may be to our ingenious neighbours, the French, to have their claims to the originality of this invention denied, the fact is, that should the opti cal principle on which the instrument is founded, and earlier publication, be held to constitute the invention, the discovery will be found to belong to England, notwithstanding the French work "published more than fifty years ago, in which the principle of this agreeable illusion is described;" for

the principle was published in London more than eighty years ago, in a work entitled "New Improvements of Planting and Gardening, both philosophical and practical, 6th Edition. By Richard Bradly, Professor of Botany at the University of Cambridge, and FR. S. Printed for J. and J. Knapton, in St Paul's Church-yard, 1731." The following is printed from Bradley's first chapter. « Description and Use of a new Invention for the more speedily designing of Garden Plats, whereby we may produce more variety of Figures in an Hour's Time, than are to be found in all the Books on Gardening

now extant.

"Since the instrument I now design to treat of has afforded some pleasure to many of my acquaintance, I have been easily persuaded to make it public. It is of that nature, that the best designers or draughtsmen may improve and help their fancies by it, and may with more certainty hit the humour of those gentlemen they are to work for, without being at the trouble of making many varieties of figures or garden plats, which will lose time and call an unnecessary expense, which frequently discourages gentlemen from making up their gardens. In short, the charge of the instrument is so small, and its use so delightful and profitable, that I doubt not its favourable reception in the world. But to proceed:

"We must choose two pieces of lookingglass of equal bigness, of the figure of a long square, five inches in length and four in breadth: they must be covered on the back with paper or silk, to prevent rubbing off the silver, which would else be apt to crack off by frequent use. This covering for the back of the glasses must be so put on that nothing of it may appear about the edges of the bright side.

"The glasses being thus prepared, they must be laid face to face and hinged together, so that they may be made to open and shut at pleasure, like the leaves of a book.

"Draw a large circle upon paper, divide it into 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 or 8 equal parts, which being done, we may draw in every one of the divisions a figure at our pleasure, either for garden plats, or fortifications.

"So likewise a pentagon may be perfectly represented by finding the fifth part of a circle, and placing the glasses upon the outlines of it, and the fourth part of a circle will likewise produce a square by means of the glasses, or, by the same rule, will give us any figure of equal sides. I easily suppose that a curious person by a little practice with these glasses may make many improvements with them, which perhaps I may not yet have discovered, or have for brevity's sake omitted to describe.

"It next follows that I explain how by these glasses we may, from the figure of a circle drawn upon paper, make an oval; and also by the same rule, represent a long square, from a perfect square. To do this,

open the glasses and fix them to an exact square: place them over a circle, and move them to and fro till you see the representation of the oval figure you like best; and so having the glasses fixed, in like manner move them over a square piece of work, till you find the figure you desire of a long square."

In the foregoing 'description of Bradley's which he constructs it, is precisely that invention, the principle of reflection on which Dr. Brewster has employed in his Kaleidoscope; but the means by which the objects that are to be reflected, are quite latter presents to the reflecting surfaces the different. Even with Bradley the kind of objects and the means by which he presented these objects to the mirrors were what constituted his instrument a new invention; for the arrangement of the reflectors themselves was not of Bradley's discovering, as we shall prove immediately.

We copy the following from John Baptista Porta's Natural Magic, the English Transla tion published in 1658.

"To make a plain Glass that shall repre sent the Image manifold.

"A glass is made that will make many representations, that is, that many things may be seen at once; for by opening and shutting it, you shall see twenty fingers for one, and more. You shall make it thus: Raise two brass looking-glasses [metallic mirrors], or of crystal, at right angles upen the same basis, and let them be in a proportion called sesquialtera, that is one and a half, or some other proportion, and let them be joined together fongways, that they may be shut and opened, like a book; and the angles be divers, such as are made at Venice: For one face being objected you shall see many in them both, and this by so much the straighter, as you put them together, and the angles are less: but they will be diminished by opening them, and the angles being more obtuse, you shall see the fewer: so showing one figure, there will be more seen and further, the right parts will show right, and the left to be left, which is contrary to looking-glasses; and this is done by mutual reflection and pulsation, whence ariseth the variety of images interchangeable."

From the foregoing it is manifest whence Bradley derived the principle which he ap plied to the construction of his instrument, for he borrows the very words of Porta, "that they (the mirrors) may be shut and opened like a book;" and hence it follows that if the discovery of the principle cannot be allowed to the French, so neither can it to the English: for Porta's work was first published (at Naples we believe) in 1538, in four books, and 35 years after (that is about the year 1573), in its enlarged form, comprising twenty books. Bradley was not called a plagiarist,-probably because his instrument, though identically the same as

Porta's, was applied in a different way and to a different purpose. Should Dr. Brewster then be considered in that light, for having made use of the same principle in his instrument, which in construction is different from either Porta's or Bradley's? Porta, by looking at objects before him, along the angle formed at the joining of his glasses, saw them multiplied: Bradley, by placing his joined glasses upon his drawings, at right angles to them, and looking at them, in the same manner, saw them multiplied; but the number of reflections could be calculated. Dr. Brewster, by putting the reflectors in a tube, and attaching thereto, and at right angles to them, two discs of glass with objects interposed, forms an optical instrument ca

pable of producing an incalculable (if not an infinite) number of combinations, by merely making the discs, or the whole instrument, to revolve on its axis, while the eye looks through it. If the previous application of any known principle to the construction of instruments, is to be considered and held as embracing all future applications of the same principle, there can be no new inventions; for to obtain knowledge of a principle, not before known, is a discovery, and not an invention: no person can invent a principle; but he may apply a principle, when known, to a new purpose, and this new application with the new means employed, is what constitutes a new invention.

T.

From the London Literary Gazette.

TWELFTH DAY.

To the rejoicings on New Year's tide succeeded, after a short interval, the observance of the Twelfth Day, so called from its being the twelfth day after the nativity of our Saviour, and the day on which the Eastern Magi, guided by the star, arrived at Bethlehem, to worship the infant Jesus.

This festive day, the most celebrated of the twelve for the peculiar conviviality of its rites, has been observed in this kingdom ever since the reign of Alfred, "in whosc days," says Collier, "a law was made with relation to holidays, by virtue of which, the twelve days after the Nativity of our Saviour were made Festivals."

In consequence of an idea which seems generally to have prevailed, that the Eastern Magi were kings, this day has been frequently termed the feast of the three kings; and many of the rites with which it is attended, are founded on this conception; for it was customary to elect, from the company assembled on this occasion, a king or queen, who was usually elevated to this rank by the fortuitous division of a cake, containing a bean, or piece of coin; and he or she to whom this symbol of distinction fell, in dividing the cake, was immediately chosen king or queen, and then forming their ministers or court from the company around, maintained their state and character until midnight.

The Twelfth Cake was almost always accompanied by the Wassail Bowl, a composition of spiced wine or ale, or mead, or inetheglin, into which was thrown roasted apples, sugar, &c. The term Wassail, which in our elder poets is connected with much interesting imagery, and many curious rites, appears to have been first used in this island during the well-known interview between Vortigern and Rowena. Geoffrey

of Monmouth relates, on the authority of Walter Calenius, that this lady, the daughter of Hengist, knelt down, on the approach of the king, and presenting him with a cup of wine, exclaimed, "Lord King Was heil,” that is, literally, "Health be to you." Vortigern being ignorant of the Saxon language, was informed by an interpreter, that the purport of these words was to wish him health, and that he should reply by the expression, drinc-heil, or "drink the health:"accordingly, on his so doing, Rowena drank, and the king receiving the cup from her hand, kissed and pledged her.

Health, my Lord King,' the sweet Rowena said; Health,' cried the chieftain to the Saxon maid; Then gaily rose, and 'mid the concourse wide, Kiss'd her hale lips, and placed her by his side. At the soft scene, such gentle thoughts abound, That healths and kisses 'mongst the guests went

round:

From this the social custom took its rise;
We still retain, and still must keep the prize.

Paraphrase of Robert of Gloucester.

Since this period, observes the historian, the custom has prevailed in Britain of using these words whilst drinking; the person who drank to another saying was-heil, and he who received the cup answering drine-heil.

It soon afterwards became a custom in villages on Christmas-eve, New Year's Eve, and Twelfth Night, for itinerant minstrels to carry to the houses of the gentry and others, where they were generally very hospitably received, a bowl of spiced wine, which being presented with the Saxon words just mentioned, was therefore called a Wassail-bowl. A bowl or cup of this description was also to be found in almost every nobleman's or gentleman's house, (and frequently of massy silver,) until the middle of the seventeenth century, and which was in perpetual requisition during the revels of Christmas."

[Hence we have the word Wassel, synonymous for carousing and jovialty.]