36 



ASTRONOMICAL PHENOMENA AND PROGRESS. 



The Shower of November 14th. Professor 

 D. E. Hunter gives the following results of his 

 watch for meteors at the Leonid epoch in 1880, 

 at Washington, Davies County, Indiana : The 

 morning of November 13th was cloudy, and 

 on the 15th the moonlight interfered with ob- 

 servations till daylight. On the morning of 

 the 14th, watch was kept for two hours, from 

 3 h - 45 m - to 5 h- 45 m- by Professor Hunter and 

 three assistants. One hundred and sixteen 

 meteors were seen, of which ninety-one were 

 Leonids. During the first hour, before the 

 moon had set, but fifteen meteors of the No- 

 vember shower were seen ; but in the second 

 hour (the moon being absent) seventy-six were 

 observed, and of these fifty-one were counted 

 in the last thirty minutes. The length of the 

 tracks varied from 2 to 40, the average being 

 about 6 or 7. 



Fire-balls. Many large meteors or fire-balls 

 were seen during the year, of which the fol- 

 lowing are some of the principal: A meteor 

 u of immense size " was seen at Welling, in 

 Kent, England, at 5 h - 2CT, p. M., January 3d. 

 On January 19th, at 7"' 20 m -, P. M., Dr. L. Wal- 

 do saw at New Haven a fine double meteor. 

 ]t was first observed very near Capella, and it 

 moved toward Theta in Ursa Major, the track 

 being parallel to the line joining Beta and 

 Gamma in that constellation. The distance 

 between the meteors was about 1 30'. 



On April 12th, at 9 h - 42 m -, Professor F. P. 

 Denza, at Moncalieri, saw a fine meteoric fire- 

 ball with a path from right ascension 30, dec- 

 lination 62 north, to right ascension 29, dec- 

 lination 45 north, leaving a long streak, and 

 moving slowly. (" Observatory " for June, 

 18SO.) 



A large fire-ball, whose light was nearly 

 equal to that of the full moon, was seen by 

 Professor E. W. Claypole, of Antioch College, 

 Ohio, June 10th, at ten minutes after nine 

 o'clock, P. M. It was first seen very near 

 Benetnasch, "and disappeared behind a cloud 

 on its way to the west- north west point of the 

 horizon. It was visible about two seconds, 

 and left no sparks behind." 



Several daylight meteors have been seen 

 during the year. In "Nature," for July 1st, 

 Mr. W. Odell, of Coventry, England, states 

 that on June llth, shortly before sunset, he 

 saw, due east of his position, a bright white 

 meteor moving toward the north with a path 

 slightly inclined to the horizon. The length 

 of its track was 10 or 12. A fire-ball half 

 the apparent size of the moon was seen in day- 

 light on the afternoon of July 9th, by the Rev. 

 Lloyd Jones, one mile east of Greenwich, Eng- 

 land. According to the Indianapolis "Daily 

 Journal," of November 23d, n. large meteor 

 was seen by several persons at Bloomington, 

 Ind., about 4 h - 30 m shortly before sunset 

 on the evening of November 18th. It was 

 first observed at a point nearly northwest at 

 an altitude of 30 or 35. Its motion was ap- 

 proximately parallel to the horizon, and its 



explosion occurred at a point very nearly 

 north. Its apparent magnitude was one half 

 that of the moon. No sound was heard to 

 follow the explosion. The same meteor was 

 seen by many persons at Washington, Ind., 

 fifty miles southwest of Bloomington. 



New Stars, or hitherto Undiscovered Varia- 

 bles. The " Observatory " for June, 1880, con- 

 tains a letter from Mr. Joseph Baxendell, of 

 Southport, England, announcing the discovery 

 of two stars, which he regards as either new 

 or as long-period variables, whose cycles of 

 change have not been determined. The first 

 is in Gemini, and was discovered January 28th. 

 The second is in Bootes, and was first seen on 

 the night of March 12th. 



The Variable R Hydra. Dr. Gould, Direc- 

 tor of the Cordoba Observatory, South Amer- 

 ica, has lately discussed the recorded observa- 

 tions of this interesting variable, dating back 

 to 1662. The variability was discovered by 

 Maraldi, at Paris, in 1704. The assigned pe- 

 riod was four hundred and thirty-six days, and 

 the range of variation was from the fourth to 

 the tenth magnitude. Dr. Gould's discussion 

 has led to a significant and important discov- 

 ery, viz., that the period of variation is rapidly 

 decreasing. This decrease, according to Dr. 

 Gould, amounts to more than nine hours in 

 each period. 



New Double Stars. The monthly notice of 

 the Royal Astronomical Society for December, 

 1879, has a communication from S. W. Burn- 

 ham, Esq., of Chicago, giving an account of 

 his discoveries of double stars since the pub- 

 lication of his last catalogue. Beta Scorpii 

 has long been known as a wide double, but 

 now Mr. Burnham announces the duplicity of 

 the principal component. The star is therefore 

 triple, and the members in all probability con- 

 stitute a physical system. 48 Virginis, seen 

 as a single star by all former observers, was 

 found to be a very close pair, the members 

 being each of the sixth magnitude. 86 Vir- 

 ginis had been known as double, but the Chi- 

 cago telescope has separated each of the com- 

 ponents. The four stars taken together form 

 the closest quadruple system known. They 

 are of the sixth, tenth, eleventh, and thirteenth 

 magnitudes, respectively. 550 Virginis is a 

 double star, which Schmidt, in 1866, discov- 

 ered to be variable. Mr. Burnham has de- 

 tected a distant companion, of the twelfth or 

 thirteenth magnitude, forming with the old 

 components a triple system. 



The Warner Observatory. Through the lib- 

 erality of Mr. H. H. Warner, a new astronom- 

 ical observatory has just been built at Roch- 

 ester, New York. It is to be supplied with a 

 telescope having an object-glass sixteen inches 

 in diameter, and a focal length of twenty-two 

 feet. The observatory will be placed in charge 

 of Dr. Lewis Swift, a gentleman already distin- 

 guished by his discovery of comets. 



The Lick Observatory. Perhaps no enter- 

 prise of our time gives brighter promise of 



