10 REPORT—1850. 
ficient to clear the chimney-tops, on the west side of the street; an elevation 
which he afterwards estimated, as he states, with considerable accuracy at 28°. 
I have received further and more minute accounts of the appearance of the 
meteor from Mr. Stevenson, who has been most kind and intelligent in his 
communications; and my friend Mr. James Peddie has verified the accuracy 
of Mr. Stevenson’s observations beyond the possibility of mistake. It ap- 
pears that the meteor passed quite clear of a stack of chimneys on the oppo- 
site side of the street, which would give it a well-defined minimum altitude 
of 25° 41'; but Mr. Stevenson is of opinion that it rose more than 2° higher, 
or to not less than 28° (perhaps even to 28° 21'); when it was highest, its 
bearing was 523° W. of N. (magnetic), and it disappeared from his view when 
it bore 40° 27! E. of magnetic N. Jt was then decidedly single. Now this bear- 
ing coincides with that at which Mr. Gourlie observed it to become double ; 
and, consequently, the limit towards the N. of this event is severely defined. 
The following table contains the most definite of these observations, and 
the azimuths are all reduced to the true meridian :— 
reatest} Trueazimuth | True azimuth of Are True azimuth of | Altitude at 
altitude. when first seen. | disappearanee. | observed. | first explosion. |first explosion. 
Durham .../10° 80Ί N. 45° W. N. 12° E. 57° I N. 
Edinburgh 155 WTS [a Se Be rage gg χὰ ον as 
St. Andrews/15° Nooo W. N. 16° E. 7" N. 4° E. 
Perth os. sss 17804 W472 Ss N. 7° W. 130° ὃ 
(in acloud) 
GIREGOW a. r120 | febecctssrccscecont| <aeccaeesenssenes 100°? N. 14° E. 15 
Remarks on the Observations. 
1. On the whole, these observations are not consistent, and cannot (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 accordant, 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. 27° E. (true); which accords well 
with the observations at most of the individual stations, and particularly with 
the vanishing direction in Professor Kelland’s remarkable observation at 
Granton. 
2. The Durham observation is compatible with the above-mentioned 
group within the limits of error. By the combination of Durham and Edin- 
burgh (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 twenty miles above 
the earth) which the combination 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 
