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A CATALOGUE OF OBSERVATIONS OF LUMINOUS METEORS. 127 
Bohnal, near Shorapore, December 14th. You are desirous of intelligence 
of meteors, and therefore I mention that the night before last, about half-past 
eleven (I had no watch with me), I observed a very brilliant meteor pass ra- 
pidly from the zenith, and fall in a south-west direction, exploding when 
within about 20° of the horizon, in a shower of brilliant sparks; I cannot 
speak accurately as to its size, which appeared to increase as it descended, 
but it was at least four times as large as Venus at her brightest, and gave out 
light enough to dim the light of the stars in the direction of which it passed. 
I have no doubt, if there had not been many torches burning near me at the 
time, that its light would have been strong on the ground. I could hear no 
noise on its explosion. The colour of the meteor was a greenish white. 
No. 37.—The following additional extracts from correspondence on me- 
teors observed in India, and inserted in the Catalogue of 1849, have been 
recently forwarded by Dr. Buist. 
Meteor of March 19, 1849. 
“Poona, 22nd March. 
(1.) “ Sir,—None of the Bombay accounts sent you of the aérolite which 
fell on the 19th are sufficiently explicit. Most of your correspondents must 
have seen it crossing their meridian ; can none of them estimate its angular 
height at that moment? Iam not very well acquainted with your localities, 
but the meteor would seem to have been north of you, and at no great ele- 
vation. Supposing it to have had a meridian altitude of 20°, and combining 
this with the data we sent you two or three days ago, you will find that it 
must have been about thirty miles high(perhaps ten when it burst), and taking 
its apparent diameter at 4’, must have measured nearly 200 yards across—an 
enormous mass, sufficient to furnish, on exploding, a very large shower of 
meteoric stones. It appeared to pass over about 30° of the heaveus in some- 
thing less than two seconds; and this, at the distance at which it must have 
been, if the data we have here assumed are anything near the truth, will give 
a real velocity of thirty miles per second. 
“The theory of these bodies, which considers them as moving through 
space, and becoming hot and luminous on entering our atmosphere, from the 
rapid compression of the air, would seem to be pretty consistent with all this. 
« P.S.—I will just add a word or two concerning the probable errors of 
these estimates. The height and velocity are certainly if anything under- 
stated, while on the contrary, the volume assigned is not unlikely to be con- 
siderably in excess, since the apparent magnitude may have been partly an 
optical deception, or may have been that subtended—not by the meteor 
itself, but by its luminous envelope.” 
* * * * * * 
(2.) “I saw it on the-lyth, at about 6°30 p.m., away in the S.W., high up 
in the heavens, falling with great velocity towards the earth, but directed to 
the N.E. It was intensely brilliant, of a bluish white colour, like a Roman 
candle, bursting into a sparkling shower of a dull red colour. We heard no 
sound after it burst here, but at Aurungabad, some considerable time after- 
wards, a sound of distant thunder was distinctly audible. Everybody differs 
as to the time; some minutes—say three—elapsed ; that will take us just 
about to the region of fireballs, for assuming 1125 as the rate sound travels 
per second, three times that will reach about to the crepuscular atmosphere, 
the nursery of these meteoric bodies. At Aurungabad its course appeared 
northward, passing over the heads of the good folks there, and bursting 
about twenty miles to the north of the station.—W. H. B.” 
* Boldanah, 1st April, 1849,’ 
