315 



Remarks on the Observations. 



" 1. On the whole, these observations are not consistent, and can- 

 not (I conceive) be cleared up without additional and accurate ones, 

 which it may now be too late to procure. The central group of 

 stations, Edinburgh, Perth, and St Andrews, are sufficiently accord- 

 ant, and indicate that the path of the meteor must have been nearly 

 parallel to a line passing through the first and last of those places, 

 or in a direction N. 2"]° E. (true) ; which accords well with the ob- 

 servations at most of the individual stations, and particularly with 

 the vanishing direction in Professor Keliand's remarkable observa- 

 tion at Granton. 



" 2. The Durham observation is compatible with the above-men- 

 tioned group within the limits of error. By the combination of 

 Durham and Edinburgh (the base line perpendicular to the assumed 

 direction of the meteor's motion being 95 miles), I calculated that 

 the meteor passed vertically nearly over the Island of St Kilda, with 

 an absolute elevation of about 88 miles. But this solution seems 

 absolutely excluded by observations at Glasgow which admit of no 

 question, and which I have spared no pains in verifying. Had the 

 position of the meteor been such as I have first assumed, it could 

 not possibly have been seen over even the roofs of the houses from 

 the station occupied by Mr Stevenson, much less over the chimney- 

 tops. The bearing, at the moment of explosion at Glasgow, also 

 singularly enough corroborates sufficiently well the comparatively 

 small elevation (about 20 miles above the earth) which the combina- 

 tion of Edinburgh and Glasgow gives ; and this bearing we have 

 seen to have been also accurately defined by the physical obstacles 

 bounding the observer's view ; it would have given a parallax of 15 , 

 subtended by the perpendicular on the meteor's path, referred to 

 Glasgow and Edinburgh respectively. Now, if this calculation were 

 anything like correct, the Perth observation is entirely wrong ; and 

 the meteor could not have risen about 6° above the horizon of Dur- 

 ham, instead of 10^ or 11° as estimated. I am unable, in any de- 

 gree, to explain these conflicting results. 



" 3. The observations of Professor Kelland at Granton, and those 

 at Perth, through the great azimuths of 125° and 130°, described by 

 the meteor with such remarkable deliberation of motion, lead, when 

 analyzed, to the very same results which presented themselves to the 



