The Dahcotahs say that meteors are men or women flying through the air; that they fall to pieces as they go along, finally falling to the earth.

This hairy meteor, &c.' The 'old Gentleman in Oldham' is Loyola, as described in Oldham's third satire on the Jesuits,

* Those singular meteors, the comets, which flash through heaven with long trails of light, and of old astonished the nations as if they were harbingers of some overwhelming calamity, were also the frequent subjects of our astronomer's investigations.