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XLV. On Shooting Stars. 

 By Sir J. W. Lubbock, Bart,, RR.S.^ 



SOME time since, in a paper in the Philosophical Magazine, 

 I ventured to suggest that the disappearance of shooting 

 stars might be occasioned by their passing into the earth's 

 shadow, or in other words, by being eclipsed. Lately, in 

 looking over the Astronomische Nachrichten, I found in 

 No. 614-, in a paper entitled " Ueber eine Langenbestimmung 

 aus den August-Sternschuppen," 184-7, by M. Weyer, three 

 observations of shooting stars, which might, supposing their 

 distance from the earth's surface as given in that paper suffi- 

 ciently accurate, serve to test in those instances the truth of 

 my hypothesis. Accordingly I requested Mr. Farley to cal- 

 culate the distance of the bodies, and the following tables ex- 

 hibit the results obtained, and the data, as furnished by the 

 tables in the Ast. Nach. They do not appear to be favour- 

 able to the hypothesis above referred to. The notation is as 

 follows, conformably to that of my preceding paper : — 



R = earth's semidiameter = 3958 miles. 



a = azimuth of shooting star — azimuth of sun; reckoned 

 from the south meridian westward, 



^ = apparent zenith distance of shooting star. 



p = distance of shooting star from the spectator. 



= depression of sun's centre, so that 90° + 9 = sun's ze- 

 nith distance. 



In order to estimate the effect which an error in the as- 

 sumed place of disappearance would have upon g, it has been 

 calculated upon three different hypotheses: — 



1. Supposing the shooting star to have disappeared at Pa- 

 penburg, having the same R.A. and Dec. as the star indi- 

 cated in the Ast. Nach. 



2. Supposing the place so assumed to be in error 3° or 

 12"^ in R.A., and the Dec. to be correct. 



3. Supposing the place assumed to be in error 3° in Dec. 

 and the R.A. to be correct, 



* Communicated by the Author. 



