12G 



EECORD OF SCIENCE FOR 1886. 



A recent bulletin of tlie New England Meteorological Society gives 

 a discussion, by Professor Newton, of a meteor seen on September 6, 

 188G, height, time and place of appearance and disappearance, etc. It 

 is desired that observers should report the position of bright meteors, 

 noting their paths among the stars, and trails, if any, with as much 

 accuracy and detail as jiosSible. 



Mr. Denning publishes in the Monthly Notices for November some 

 interesting results he has obtained from the study of a catalogue of 

 more than 82,000 meteors from 3,035 radiants. Mr. Denning himself 

 contributes to his catalogue no less than 7,000 meteors. He also, in 

 another place, calls attention to the marked agreement between the 

 orbit of Halley's comet and a pronounced meteor shower with radiant 

 close to 5j Aquarii. The maximum shower occurs about May 6. This 

 radiant needs further observation. 



Relation of the zodiacal light to Jupiter. — Dr. Geelmuyden, speaking 

 of Professor Searle's researches upon the zodiacal light, says : " If the 

 zodiacal matter has the same position among meteoric matter in general 

 as comets of short period among comets, it is to be expected that the 

 fundamental plane of the zodiacal light will have some relation to Jupi- 

 ter as the principal motor in deflecting the orbits, and therefore in col- 

 lecting the matter. Now it is worth remarking that the most north- 

 erly point of Jupiter's orbit has the heliocentric longitude 188°, or with 

 C0° east elongation 178° geocentric longitude ; and for matter in the 

 same plane, but nearer the sun, the approximation to coincidence with 

 160° is still greater." 



THE SUN. 



Motion of the solar system in space. — Several attempts have lately been 

 made to obtain the direction and rate of motion of the solar system in 

 space. These results are discordant among themselves, and, as the in- 

 vestigators have remarked, are not entitled to very great weight, on 

 account of the meagerness of the data available, but it may not be with- 

 out interest to give the values obtained. 



Herr Homann, from a discussion of the spectroscopic observations 

 made at Greenwich, and from the observations of Huggin and Sea- 

 broke, finds : 



Velocity of 

 trauslation, 



ia miles 

 per second. 



Apex of solar 

 motion. 



K. A. Decl 



Greenwich 

 Hiiggins .. 

 Seabroke.. 



24. 4 i 2.7 

 :50. 1 -t 14. 3 

 15. 2 ± 9.8 



320°. 1 

 309 .5 



278 .8 



+41°. 2 

 +69 .7 

 +13 .6 



