146 Transactions. 



hour was nearly, if not quite, 2°. These': quantities are eye 

 estimates, corrected by comparison with others, and by using 

 an instrument on an imaginary representation— not a satis- 

 factory proceeding. The figure gives some idea of the magni- 

 tude of the object. 



Several persons claimed to have seen the very beginning. 

 One, at Auckland, says it shot up from the horizon at an angle 

 of 70° or 80° to a height of 40°. I feel pretty sure the shooting- 

 up is erroneous ; also, from my station the streak appeared 

 vertical. Another observer, Mr. A Scott, Auckland, said it 

 " darted out of a cloud like a ball of silver ; after d opping a 

 few yards it just for an instant threw off coloured lights, 1 ke a 

 rocket, and then left a pillar of silver light as it dropped to the 

 earth. The bright perpendicular column, which remained per- 

 pendicular for nearly a minute, made quite a weird impression, 

 till it began to be blown about by the wind. The silvery light 

 would remain for about ten minutes." 



Miss Maguire, the artist, whose name I mentioned above, 

 says her Impression is that her eyes were directed to the exact 

 spot of the sky at the moment the object appeared. I see no 

 reason to, doubt this. If a person's eyes are directed to a point 

 in the sky, and an intense gleam of light appears in the neighbour- 

 hood, the eyes are instantly drawn to bear on the spot where 

 the gleam appears. Miss Maguire says her first impression was 

 a flash of " crinkly lightning." Another observer at Nelson 

 says he saw a ball of light fall and burst. 



Mr. F. G. Gibb, of Nelson, a person of scientific attainments, 

 whose observations are entitled to great weight, wrote to a 

 newspaper describing what he saw. He says, ' The sky was 

 clearly visible at the time, and the ' streak of lightning frozen ' 

 remained clearly visible for about half an hour, though an ob- 

 server who was well situated declares that the luminous cloud 

 into which the streak resolved was visible for two hours. I 

 turned a 5 in. refracting telescope upon the streak within a 

 minute or two after the fall of the meteor, and found that it' 

 consisted of long-drawn-out wisps of luminous cloud, which 

 had, I am almost sure, a slight movement downward. The 

 direction in which it appeared from the Town of Nelson was 

 exactly north-west magnetic." 



The description by Mr. Palmer, of New Plymouth, differs 

 surprisingly from all others. He says he first observed a lumi- 

 nous head, and afterwards another ball of light also appeared 

 lower down. This latter shape it kept for about ten minutes, 

 and then finally dissolved. His sketch is of two balls, one above 

 the other, not quite vertically, connected by a thread of light, 

 'vhich is prolonged beyond the lower one. 



