Mr Galloway on Shooting-Stars and Meteors. 389 



Wartmann s Observations. — The last set of corresponding 

 observations referred to in the paper was made in Switzer- 

 land, on the 10th of August 1838 ; a circumstantial account of 

 which is given by M. Wartmann, in Quetelet's Correspondence 

 Mathhnatique for July 1839. M. Wartmann, and five other 

 observers, provided with celestial charts, stationed them- 

 selves at the Observatory of Geneva ; and the correspond- 

 ing observations were made by M. Renier and an assistant, 

 at Planchettes, a village about sixty miles to the north- 

 east of that city. In the space of seven and a half hours, 

 the number of meteors observed by the six observers at Ge- 

 neva was 3S1 ; and during five and a half hours, the number 

 observed at Planchettes by two observers was 104. All the 

 circumstances of the phenomena — the place of the apparition 

 and disappearance of each meteor, the time it continued visi- 

 ble, its brightness relatively to the fixed stars, whether ac- 

 companied with a train, &c, were carefully noted. The 

 trajectories were then projected on a large planisphere. The 

 extent of the trajectories described by the meteors was very 

 different, varying from 8° to 70° of angular space, and the ve- 

 locities appeared also to differ considerably ; but the average 

 velocity concluded by M. Wartmann was 25° per second. Jt 

 was found, from the comparison of the simultaneous observa- 

 tions, that the average height above the ground was about 

 550 miles ; and hence the relative velocity was computed to 

 be about 240 miles in a second. But as the greater number 

 moved in a direction opposite to that of the earth in its orbit, 

 the relative velocity must be diminished by the earth's velo- 

 city (about 19 miles in a second). This still leaves upwards 

 of 220 miles per second for the absolute velocity of the me- 

 teor, which is more than eleven times the orbital velocity of 

 the earth, seven and a half times that of the planet Mercury, 

 and probably greater than that of the comets at their peri- 

 helia. 



Deductions from the above observations. — From the above 

 results, it is obvious that the heights and velocities of the 

 shooting-stars are exceedingly various and uncertain ; but if 

 the observations are in any respect worthy of confidence they 

 prove that many of these meteors (according to Wartnianifs 

 observations, by far the greater number) arc, during the time 



