METEOKS. 



477 



mainly directed to the determination of the rate of 

 fall and the time of flight. 



The following table shows the rate of fall per min- 

 ute during the night, taken at the Dudley Observa- 

 tory: 



H. M. Rate of Fall. 



11.30 P. M 1 



12.00 M 2 



12.30 A. M 2.5 



1.00 A. M 3 



1.30 A. M 3.5 



2.00 A. M 4 



2.30 A. M 4.5 



3.00 A. M 5 



3.30 A. M 6 



4.00A.M 8 



4.30 A. M 10 



5.00 A. M 12 



5.30 A. M 10 



An inspection of this table shows that the shower 

 gradually increased, attaining its maximum at 5 

 o'clock A. M., being half an hour later than last year. 

 The whole number of meteors noted from 11.30 p. M. 

 to 5.30 A. M. was 1,850. As there were intervals 

 during the night when no count was made, we esti- 

 mate the whole number visible considerably above 

 2,000. The shower probably continued, with a grad- 

 ual diminution, until 10 o'clock A. M., during which 

 time at least 2,000 more must have appeared. 



Although the greatest rate of fall was only_ one- 

 fourth that of last year, yet as the shower continued 

 over so much longer an interval of time, the number 

 of meteors could not have been much less. 



The time of flight of more than one hundred was 

 recorded by electricity on the chronograph, in the 

 manner we adopted in 1863. The maximum of ap- 

 pearance was nine-tenths of a second, and the mini- 

 mum three-tenths, the mean being sixty-five hun- 

 dredths of a second ; not differing materially from the 

 same quantities deduced in 1863. 



The recurrence of this phenomenon with such 

 marked regularity during the past three years fully 

 demonstrates the truth of the theory that there ex- 

 ists a ring of debris circulating around the sun, in 

 which the earth plunges to a greater or less depth at 

 every revolution. G. W. HOUGH. 



Commodore Sands, Superintendent of the 

 Naval Observatory, Washington, reports that, 

 during the evening of the 13th, no extraordi- 

 nary number of meteors was seen until 11 P. M., 

 when there seemed to he an increase in the 

 number and brilliancy, though not sufficient to 

 indicate the beginning of a shower. At 12 h 

 35 m , the observers began to count the meteors, 

 and to plat the tracks of the principal ones in 

 that portion of the heavens covered by the star 

 chart constructed at the Observatory in 1866. 

 At 1.35 A. M., three hundred had been counted, 

 most of them quite brilliant, and nearly all of 

 them leaving green, blue, or red trains. Thus 

 far the display had not been confined to any 

 portion of the sky, but most of them were in 

 the northern and southern heavens, and scarcely 

 any were in a position to be placed in a star 

 chart. Many of the trains were visible several 

 minutes. One lasted ten minutes, and traces 

 of one near B. Ursa Minoris were seen thirty 

 minutes after the appearance of the meteor. 

 After 1.50 A. M. Professor Eastman succeeded in 

 sketching the tracks of about ninety meteors. 

 During one hour and forty-three minutes, four 

 hundred had been counted. The observations 

 were continued until 6 A. M., at which time five 

 thousand and seventy-eight had been counted. 

 During the whole display there were many 



meteors seen in the west. From 4 to 5 A. M. 

 the number was about equal in the east and 

 west. The time of maximum frequency was 

 about five hours, when they fell at the rate of 

 about twenty-five hundred per hour. The ra- 

 diant point was quite well defined during the 

 latter part of the shower, and was found, by 

 estimation, to be about forty-nine degrees right 

 ascension and twenty-two minutes thirty sec- 

 onds in decimation. The display was also bril- 

 liant at Philadelphia, Charleston, Memphis, New 

 Orleans, and other places in the United States. 

 Mr. Henry Tutwiler communicates to the 

 ANNUAL CYCLOPAEDIA the following account of 

 the shower as seen from the Greene Springs 

 School, Alabama: 



I regret that I am not able to say at what hour the 

 storm began. I retired at Hi p. M. on the 13th, and 

 very few meteors were visible at that time. I arose 

 at 4 on the morning of the 14th, and they were then 

 falling quite rapidly ; five hundred were counted in 

 forty minutes by four of the students appointed for 

 this purpose. Our point of view was so obstructed 

 by trees and buildings, that I am sure we did not see 

 half of those that were visible. They were remarka- 

 ble for the length of train, which, in some cases, re- 

 mained visible, like a thin, white cloud, several min- 

 utes after the apparent explosion of the main body. 

 "While disappearing, this train assumed a curved 

 form, the concavity being always in the same direc- 

 tion. They fell toward every point of the compass, 

 but when traced back seemed to come from the same 

 point of the heavens, Gamma Leonis. Not more than 

 four or five were seen by all the observers which did 

 not seem to come from this point. When they ap- 

 peared in pairs, as they sometimes did, their direc- 

 tions seemed to be very nearly parallel. There 

 appeared to be no abatement during the two hours 

 or more of our observations. The meteors ceased 

 to be visible only from the increasing light of the 

 day. 



At San Francisco the shower began about 

 10 h 30, lasting until early on the morning of 

 the 14th. The display, at 2 A. M., was regarded 

 as rivalling that of November 14, 1867. Sev- 

 eral meteors left a trail distinguishable for 

 many seconds. 



Owing to the cloudy state of the weather, no 

 meteors were seen at London, England, where 

 extensive preparations had been made to ob- 

 serve them scientifically, but a fine display was 

 witnessed at Oxford. 



An Extraordinary Meteor in Brazil. A 

 meteor, or aerolite, was observed early on the 

 morning of July 30, 1868, passing in a south- 

 west direction from Eezende, in the south of 

 the province of Rio Janeiro, into San Paulo. 

 Dr. Franklin Massena, a scientific gentleman, 

 chanced to be looking at the horizon from the 

 observatory at Italaya, and obtained a fine 

 view of the phenomenon. He reports that, 

 suddenly toward the east, at almost thirty de- 

 grees of the meridian, he saw an immense and 

 beautiful aerolite crossing to the southwest. 

 He called two other gentlemen in the observa- 

 tory, Messrs. Arsenio and Veja, and together 

 they watched the passage and disappearance 

 of this luminous body, and its form and motion. 

 Its form was that of a globe, having an appar- 

 ent diameter of about forty-three minutes, and 



