REPORTS 



ON 



THE STATE OF SCIENCE. 



Report on Observations of Luminous Meteors, 1852-53. By the 

 Rev. Baden Powell, M.A., F.R.S., F.R.A.S., F.G.S., Savilian 

 Professor of Geometry in the University of Oxford. 



In submitting to the British Association a Sixth Report on Luminous 

 Meteors, I have to acknowledge the valuable contributions of the same 

 scientific friends who have on former occasions so extensively aided the 

 objects of the Association in keeping up this record ; which, it is to be hoped, 

 may eventually prove of some service, by the accumulation of facts to illus- 

 trate the laws, and thence the origin and nature, of these remarkable phse- 

 nomena. 



I could indeed have wished that it were in my power now to have entered 

 upon some kind of classification, at least, of these perplexing appearances, 

 on which to have founded perhaps some conjectural hints towards their 

 theory ; but the pressure of other avocations has for the present hindered 

 the prosecution of a design, which I, nevertheless look forward to taking 

 in hand at no distant period. 



August 31, 1853. 



1853. 



