2. The second region of the atmosphere I suppose to be that which has too little tenacity to support condensed vapour or clouds; but which yet contains invisible vapour, or water in aerial solution. This aerial solution of water differs from that dissolved in the matter of heat, as it is supported by its adhesion to the particles of air, and is not precipitated by cold. In this stratum it seems probable that the meteors called shooting stars are produced; and that they consist of electric sparks, or lightning, passing from one region to another of these invisible fields of aero-aqueous solution. The height of these shooting stars has not yet been ascertained by sufficient observation; Dr. Blagden thinks their situation is lower down in the atmosphere than that of fireballs, which he conjectures from their swift apparent motion, and ascribes their smallness to the more minute division of the electric matter of which they are supposed to consist, owing to the greater resistance of the denser medium through which they pass, than that in which the fire-balls exist. Mr. Brydone observed that the shooting stars appeared to him to be as high in the atmosphere, when he was near the summit of mount Etna, as they do when observed from the plain. Phil. Tran. Vol. LXIII. As the stratum of air, in which shooting stars are supposed to exist is much rarer than that in which lightning resides, and yet much denser than that in which fire-balls are produced, they will be attracted at a greater distance than the former, and at a less than the latter. From this rarity of the air so small a sound will be produced by their explosion, as not to reach the lower parts of the atmosphere; their quantity of light from their greater distance being small, is never seen through dense air at all, and thence does not appear red, like lightning or fire balls. There are no apparent clouds to emit or to attract them, because the constituent parts of these aero-aqueous regions may possess an abundance or deficiency of electric matter and yet be in perfect reciprocal solution. And lastly their apparent train of light is probably owing only to a continuance of their impression on the eye; as when a fire-stick is whirled in the dark it gives the appearance of a compleat circle of fire: for these white trains of shooting stars quickly vanish, and do not seem to set any thing on fire in their passage, as seems to happen in the transit of fire-balls.