moved "against the wind" before retreating--that Captain Moore said that
at about the same place he had seen such appearances before.

_Report of the British Association_, 1861-30:

That, upon June 18, 1845, according to the _Malta Times_, from the brig
_Victoria_, about 900 miles east of Adalia, Asia Minor (36 deg. 40' 56", N.
Lat.: 13 deg. 44' 36" E. Long.), three luminous bodies were seen to issue
from the sea, at about half a mile from the vessel. They were visible
about ten minutes.

The story was never investigated, but other accounts that seem
acceptably to be other observations upon this same sensational spectacle
came in, as if of their own accord, and were published by Prof.
Baden-Powell. One is a letter from a correspondent at Mt. Lebanon. He
describes only two luminous bodies. Apparently they were five times the
size of the moon: each had appendages, or they were connected by parts
that are described as "sail-like or streamer-like," looking like "large
flags blown out by a gentle breeze." The important point here is not
only suggestion of structure, but duration. The duration of meteors is a
few seconds: duration of fifteen seconds is remarkable, but I think
there are records up to half a minute. This object, if it were all one
object, was visible at Mt. Lebanon about one hour. An interesting
circumstance is that the appendages did not look like trains of meteors,
which shine by their own light, but "seemed to shine by light from the
main bodies."

About 900 miles west of the position of the _Victoria_ is the town of
Adalia, Asia Minor. At about the time of the observation reported by the
captain of the _Victoria_, the Rev. F. Hawlett, F.R.A.S., was in Adalia.
He, too, saw this spectacle, and sent an account to Prof. Baden-Powell.
In his view it was a body that appeared and then broke up. He places
duration at twenty minutes to half an hour.

In the _Report of the British Association_, 1860-82, the phenomenon was
reported from Syria and Malta, as two very large bodies "nearly joined."

_Rept. Brit. Assoc._, 1860-77:

That, at Cherbourg, France, Jan. 12, 1836, was seen a luminous body,
seemingly two-thirds the size of the moon. It seemed to rotate on an
axis. Central to it there seemed to be a dark cavity.

For other accounts, all indefinite, but distortable into data of
wheel-like objects in the sky, see _Nature_, 22-617; London _Times_,
Oct. 15, 1859; _Nature_, 21-225; _Monthly Weather Review_, 18