Those splendid shooting stars which are often called fire-balls move in every direction. They come from the east, and from the west, from the north, and from the south. There is no hour of the night at which they have not occasionally been seen. Even in daylight it has happened not once or twice, but on several occasions, that a brilliant meteor has forced itself upon our astonished notice. They generally first make their appearance at a height which is between fifty and one hundred miles above the ground. They hurry down their inclined path, but generally become extinguished while still at least twenty miles aloft. In their more ambitious flights meteors have been known to span a kingdom. Nor are even greater strides unrecorded. The length of a continent may be compared with the track of that terrific meteor of 5th September, 1868, which broke into visibility at an appalling height above the Black Sea, and had not expended its stupendous energy until it passed over the smiling vineyards of France. Great fire-balls are much more numerous than any one would suppose who had not paid attention to the subject. Nor need this be a matter for surprise if it be remembered that when a fire-ball does arrive it is only by a favorable combination of circumstances that any particular individual is privileged to witness the exhibition. As a random example of the yearly crop of fire-balls, I take from the middle of 1877 to the middle of 1878. A list of the fire-balls noticed during this period will be found in that store-house of valuable information, the Reports of the British Association. In the year referred to I see that eighty-six great fire-balls have been recorded. They have appeared in various localities, both in the old hemisphere and in the new. The most arduous observer may think himself fortunate if he has even seen one of them. As to the brilliant light from some of these great fire-balls, there are numerous statements. We are not infrequently told that even the beams of the full moon are ineffectual in comparison with the blaze of the meteor; and we find a high authority asserting that one of these bodies displayed a flash as “blinding as the sun.” On the 29th July, 1878, a fire-ball was seen which created so splendid an illumination that “the smallest objects were visible at Manchester.” Fortunate, indeed, would the astronomer have been who, guided by some miraculous prescience, had gone to the ancient city of York on the evening of the 23d of February, 1879, and on the tower of the glorious minster spent the night in observation of the heavens. It would have been his privilege to witness a majestic meteor under circumstances of almost unique magnificence.