April II, 1878] 



NA TURE 



467 



such as I make them roughly, do not convince me that the 

 argument is without force. My chief criticism on the equation 

 has two branches : — I. Mr. Bashforth has nowhere proved that 

 he is entitled to use the k belonging to the mean velocity over the 

 arc. 2, Granting that he may use that k, we have then to 

 consider whether he has got v^ and k to accord. For my part, 

 I do not feel the degree of certainty which Mr. Bashforth ex- 

 presses about this, especially if the work is carried over a con- 

 siderable arc. T will grant that his result comes near the truth, 

 but assuredly he cannot be said to have determined v^ accurately, 

 as he affirms. 



I cannot help thinking that there is no real difference between 

 Mr. Bashforth and myself, for all that I have said against the 

 equation (a) can be said in another form against the method that 

 I prefer, and I willingly indorse the statement in the last para- 

 graph but one of his letter. I may be allowed to add that all 

 methods hitherto proposed of calculating shot ranges seem to 

 me too difficult for common use, and I believe what would really 

 be a boon to the artilleryman is a book of trajectories drawn to 

 scale. This might be accomplished very well by Mr. Bashforth's 

 tables and methods in the hands of some one competent to use 

 them, the [simpler methods, as I think them, intioduced by me, 

 being also of some service. I trust this will be done when the 

 resistance to shot moving with low velocities has been ascer- 

 tained, as I hear it is to be, by a series of experiments under 

 Mr. Bashforth's superintendence. 



Allow me in conclusion to express my regret that I should 

 seem to have been reviewing in a hostile spirit any part of the 

 work done by Mr. Bashforth at Woolwich. I will only assure 

 him that nothing could have been further from my thoughts than 

 to do so. W. D. NiVEN 



Trinity College, Cambridge, March 30 



Tha Daylight Meteor of March 25 



A CORRESPONDENT in NATURE described the falling of a 

 daylight meteor on Monday, March 25, I have received infor- 

 mation respecting this meteor from five persons who witnessed 

 its fall. 



Mr. Mclntyre, who saw it from near Dunston-on-Tyne ; Mr. 

 Wood, banker, who saw it whilst leaving his residence at 

 Benton, near Newcastle-on-Tyne ; Mrs. Hopper, from Gos- 

 f orth, one mile north of Newcastle ; Mrs. Lupton, who saw it 

 from a railway carriage at Brampton, near Carlisle ; and Mr. 

 W. Clarke, of Newburn, who saw it at Wallbottle, four miles 

 west of Newcastle. All these observers agree in the following 

 particulars: — I. That the meteor was visible at 10.20. 2. That 

 it was very luminous with a white light slightly coloured. 3. 

 That it fell at a slight inclination from E. to N., and reached 

 the horizon at or near the north point. 4. That the weather 

 was clear and the sun shone brightly at thC" time the meteor was 

 visible. T. P. Barkas 



26, Archbold Terrace, Newcastle-on-Tyne 



Meteor 



On the night of Tuesday, April 2, at about 7.55 o'clock, I 

 was standing with two companions, facing the north, when we 

 were surprised to observe the ground before us suddenly lighted 

 up, and our three shadows sharply defined upon it. One of my 

 friends exclaimed, "Why, there's the moon come out!" We 

 turned round and beheld a wonderfully brilliant meteor descend- 

 ing almost perpendicularly from about 5" east of Betelgeux, in 

 Orion, towards the most eastern of the three stars in the belt. Its 

 course was slightly zig-zag, its colour yellow or orange, its apparent 

 size about half the diameter of the full moon. It vanished 

 noiselessly before reaching the belt, and left no visible remains. 

 When we first saw it there appeared be a short trail of light 

 behind it. About three minutes after its disappearance a 

 rumbling sound was heard like distant thunder, from the same 

 direction. Whether this was connected with the meteor I 

 cannot tell. If so it would indicate a distance of about forty 

 miles, and we ought to hear of this meteor from the neighbour- 

 hood of Warwick. F, T. MoTT 



Birstal Hill, Leicester 



[The same meteor was seen by several Times correspondents. 

 It made its appearance in Ursa Major, and after remaining 

 stationary for a second or two between Orion's Belt and Sirius, 

 fell at a comparatively slow rate and in a direct line to the horizon. 

 It was pear-like in shape, seemed three or four times larger than 

 Jupiter, and was intensely bright. Its colour changed from a 



silvery white to a pale red as it approached the horizon, where 

 it disappeared behind a cloud, leaving a long track of light 

 behind it.] 



To Entomologists 



As I have undertaken the section " Arthropoda " for the 

 ^^Jahresbericht fiir Anatomie und Physiologie, of Hoffmann 

 and Schwalbe," and find some difiiculty in obtaining English 

 scientific journals (specially the entomological ones) here in 

 Naples, will you permit me through your columns to request 

 such of your readers as may have published papers on the 

 anatomy, ontogeny, 2X\^ phylog,eny, of the Hexipoda, Myriapoda, 

 Arachnoidea, Protracheata, Poecilopoda, and Crustacea in 1877, 

 or intend to do so in 1878 and the following years, to be kind 

 enough to forward me a copy of theja, or at least to inform me 

 of the fact ? Paul Mayer 



Naples, Stazione Zoologica, March 31 



GEOGRAPHICAL NOTES 



Royal Geographical Society Medals. — The 

 Founder's Medal for 1878, of the Royal Geographical 

 Society, has been awarded to Baron F. von Richthofen 

 for his extensive travels and scientific explorations in 

 China ; also for his great work now in course of pub- 

 lication, in which the materials accumulated during' his 

 long journeys are elaborated with remarkable lucidity and 

 completeness. The Patron's Medal has been given to 

 Capt. Henry Trotter, R.E., for his services to geography, 

 in having conducted the survey operations of the late 

 Mission to Eastern Turkistan, under Sir Douglas For- 

 syth, which resulted in the connection of the Trigono- 

 metrical Survey of India with the Russian Surveys from 

 Siberia, and for having further greatly improved the map 

 of Central Asia. Mr. Stanley, being already a medallist, 

 is disqualified from receiving a similar honour, but he has 

 been elected an honorary corresponding member, and is 

 to receive the thanks of the Council for his discoveries. 



Africa. — With a view to facilitating the progress of 

 the London Missionary Society's contemplated expedition 

 from the East Coast of Africa to Lake Tanganyika, the 

 Rev. Roger Price, who had had long experience of roads 

 and waggons in South Africa, was despatched to Zanzibar 

 in 1876, to make investigations respecting a new route 

 and new mode of travelling into the interior. He made 

 the experiment of using bullocks and waggons in the 

 place of pagazi, and with so much success that it was 

 resolved that the expedition should adopt that mode of 

 conveyance for themselves and their goods, and a flourish- 

 ing account of the new scheme was given before the 

 Royal Geographical Society on February 26, 1877. Before 

 the expedition arrived at Zanzibar in the summer of last 

 year, Mr. Mackay, an agent of the Church Missionary 

 Society, was reported to have cleared a road nearly, if 

 not quite, as far as Mpwapwa, and it was supposed that 

 the expedition would reach the Lake with great ease. 

 Their hopes, however, have been grievously disappointed. 

 The road has turned out to be no road at all, and most of 

 the oxen have died from the effects of the climate. Mr. 

 Price returned to England some little time back, con- 

 vinced, we believe, of the present impracticability of his 

 bullock-waggon scheme, and sad to relate, it has been 

 found necessary to revert to the old pagazi system, the 

 curse of African travel. By latest accounts the expe- 

 dition had formed a camp at Kirasa, in Usugara, on the 

 edge of the high plateau, and about forty miles east of 

 Mpwapwa, and there they intend to remain till after the 

 rainy season. — Lieut. J. B. Wathier has been appointed 

 to join the Belgian expedition at Zanzibar, which recently 

 lost two of its members, MM. Crespel and Maes. He 

 has visited Dr. Nachtigall at Berlin, to obtain the advice 

 of the experienced explorer, and left Brindisi for Zan- 

 zibar on the Sth inst. Dr. Nachtigall himself, as 

 leader of the German expedition, is to start from St. Paul 

 de Loanda, and it is hoped that the two expeditions may 

 meet in the centre of Africa. 



