On the 30th September 1853, I was with my friend Mr David Wallace, in a field near his house, Balgrummo, in the neighbourhood of Leven, in Fifeshire. The atmosphere was very clear, and the sun was shining brightly. The sky was covered in some quarters with thin cirrous clouds, and we had been watching the changes in the appearance of the clouds nearly overhead, when Mr Wallace, who was still observing the sky, pointed suddenly upwards, and called on me to look. I did so, and instantly saw a round body, apparently as large as a star of the first magnitude, moving rapidly upwards,—roughly speaking, towards the zenith, or more accurately, towards the sun. This, as I immediately afterwards ascertained, was about 11h 15m Greenwich mean time.