ASTRONOMICAL PHENOMENA AND PROGRESS. 



outbursts upon stars sometimes of sufficient violence 

 to shoot off part of their substance. We have found 

 the gaseoiw portion sweeping through space like a not, 

 and the vapors thnt accompanied it condensed into 

 spatters Unit have OOIMOttdtted into metoori tea. We 

 have seen this system traveling through boundless 

 space, with nothing near it except an occasional soli- 

 tary meteor, and we have seen it in the lon^ lapse of 



e U-eii millions of years in descending toward 

 him. Its natural course would have been to have 

 glided r.mnd him in a curve, and to have then with- 

 Ir.iwn to the sumo vast abyss from which it had come ; 

 l>ui, in attempting this, it became entangled with one 

 t' the philips, which dragged it out of its course and 

 then lluiiL,' it aside. Immediately it entered upon the 

 new course assigned to it, which it has been pursuing 

 ever since. After passing the planet the different 

 members of the group found themselves in paths very 

 close to one another, but not absolutely the same. These 

 orbits differed from one another very slightly in all 

 respects, and among others in the time which a body 

 takes to travel round them. Those meteors which 

 got round soonest found themselves, after the first 

 revolution, at the head of the group; those which 

 moved slowest fell into the rear, and the comet was 

 the last of all. Each succeeding revolution lengthened 

 out Uie column, and the comet soon separated from 

 the rest. Fifty-two revolutions have now taken place. 

 and the litUe cloud has crept out into an extended 

 stream, stretching a long way round the orbit, while 

 the comet has fallen the greater part of a revolution 

 behind. Wo can look forward, too, and see that in 

 seventeen centuries more the train will have doubled 

 its length, and that ultimately it will form a complete 

 ring round the whole orbit. When this takes place, 

 a shower of these meteors will fall every year upon 

 the earth, but the swarm will be then so scattered 

 that the display will be for less imposing thim it 

 now is. 



The Meteor of November 27, 1877.* The 

 number of the " Monthly Notices " of the Roy- 

 al Astronomical Society for February, 1879, 

 has a brief account of a fire-ball seen in Eng- 

 land by Captain Tupman and others on the 

 evening of November 27, 1877, at 10"- 26 m - 

 Greenwich mean time. A discussion by Cap- 

 tain Tupman of all the observations leads to 

 the remarkable conclusion that the meteor was 

 revolving about the sun in an orbit less eccen- 

 tric than that of Mercury, and at a mean dis- 

 tance intermediate between those of Mars and 

 the earth. The elements of its orbit are given 

 as follows : 



Mean distance 1-1691 



Period 462 days. 



Kccentriclty 0-1568 



Longitude of perihelion 706' 



Longitude of ascending node 24550' 



Inclination 150' 



Motion direct 



The radiant point of this meteor was at 

 R. A. 285 and decl. N. 64. Other meteors 

 near this epoch have had very nearly the same 

 radiant a fact regarded by Captain Tupman 

 as indicating the probable existence of " a me- 

 teoric ring of nearly circular form occupying 

 the position in space defined by the elements 

 given above." 



The Meteorite of May 10, 1879. In the 



* The accounts of this meteor were received too late for 

 our last volume. 



" American Journal of Science " for July, 1879, 

 Professor S. F. Peckbam of Minneapolis, Min- 

 nesota, gives the principal facts in regard to a 

 meteoric fall at Ester ville, Emmet County, 

 Iowa, at 5 o'clock p. M., May 10, 1879. Pro- 

 fessor Sbepard of Amherst College secured sev- 

 eral fragments of this meteorite, and in the 

 September number of the " Journal " he fur- 

 nishes an interesting description of its struc- 

 ture and composition. The fall was preceded 

 by a terrific explosion, which in a few seconds 

 was followed by others, each succeeding re- 

 port becoming gradually less violent. The me- 

 teoric body was seen to strike the earth at the 

 edge of a ravine, where it penetrated to the 

 depth of fourteen feet. Within a distance of 

 two miles several other fragments were found, 

 one of which, weighing about 170 pounds, was 

 secured for the cabinet of the Minnesota State 

 University. The largest mass weighed 431 

 pounds, and the third in magnitude, 82. Sev- 

 eral small fragments were found after consid- 

 erable search, making in all about 640 pounds. 

 Professor Shepard characterizes the Esterville 

 aerolite as remarkably unique in its composi- 

 tion. "Judging," he says, "from the speci- 

 mens in hand, it can not properly be referred 

 to any group of meteoric stones with which 

 we are acquainted." 



Meteor of November 2J^ 1879. A. meteor 

 considerably larger than Jupiter was seen at 

 8 h 40 m> on the evening of November 24th, at 

 Bloomington, Indiana, by President Moss of 

 the State University. It became visible nearly 

 in R. A. 67 and decl. N. 13, and it exploded 

 into four fragments about R. A. 87 and decl. 

 S. 7. Its motion was slow, but the observer 

 made no estimate of the time of flight. Dr. 

 Moss, who was looking eastward when the 

 meteor appeared, and had a complete view of 

 its track, states that it continued to increase 

 in brightness up to the moment of its explosion. 

 It probably belonged to the group known as 

 Taurids I. 



Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical So- 

 ciety. The Council of the Royal Astronomi- 

 cal Society of London, at their annual meeting 

 in February, 1879, awarded the Society's gold 

 medal to Professor Asaph Hall of the United 

 States Naval Observatory, Washington, D. C., 

 for his discovery and observations of the satel- 

 lites of Mars, and for his determination of their 

 orbits. Lord Lindsay, the President of the 

 Society, explained at length the grounds upon 

 which the Council had made their award, gave 

 an interesting sketch of the life and labors of 

 Professor Hall, and closed by delivering the 

 gold medal to the Foreign Secretary, whom he 

 addressed as follows :. " And now, Mr. Hind, 

 may I request you, as the Foreign Secretary of 

 the Society, to place this medal in the hands of 

 the Minister of the United States, to be trans- 

 mitted to Professor Asaph Hall, as the highest 

 mark of esteem in the gift of the Royal Astro- 

 nomical Society ? Assure him at the same time 

 of the deep interest that we in England have 



