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LIII. An Account of a remarkable Meteor seen at Oxford, March 5, 1764. In a Letter to the Rev. Thomas Birch, D. D. Secretary to the Royal Society, from the Rev. John Swinton, B. D. F. R. S. Member of the Academi degli Apatisti at Florence, and of the Etruscan Academy of Cortona in Tuscany.

Good Sir,

Read Dec. 6,
1764.

COMING out of Christ-Church common-room into the great quadrangle, on Monday, March 5th, 1764, about 7^h 30′ P. M. I observed, with some surprize, a general brightness in the air, much superior to that of the full moon; though the heavens were then in some measure overcast, and the moon only three days old. This unusual and very remarkable illustration of the atmosphere continued the whole evening, though nothing farther meriting any particular regard (at least nothing that I either saw or heard of) for two or three hours occurred. But throwing up my bedchamber sash, a little before eleven o'clock, I unexpectedly discovered a most glorious and exceedingly resplendent white [Tab. XVIII.] column in the southern part of the hemisphere, which in lustre surpassed every thing of the same kind that I had ever seen before. The base of this column seemed to be between twenty and thirty degrees distant from the horizon, and was many degrees broad. The meteor ascended gradually near thirty degrees, passing to the S. of the

zenith.