174 
NATURE 
[| DECEMBER 24, 1896 
preceding days by. ably written: atticles on the phenomenon in 
the leading daily journals, which could not be fulfilled and 
realised in England from the unfavourable state of the atmo- 
sphere for observations. 
The earth should indeed have crossed the main meteor-stream 
of the two great showers of 1866 and 1867, supposing the node 
of the meteor-current’s orbit to have been advancing at its 
accustomed pace on the ecliptic in the imtervening years, at 
about daybreak, or between 3 and 9 o'clock a.m. on Saturday 
morning, the 14th, as predicted; but certain attendant meteor- 
clouds or clusters also exist, accompanying the main stream, and 
on 1865, November 13 (a.m.), a grand display of the Leonids 
was widely observed in Europe and America from midnight 
until daybreak, which, it was shown by Mr. B. V. Marsh? of 
Philadelphia, U.S.A., constituted a branch-stream twelve or 
fifteen hours earlier in the times of its maximum recurrences than 
the principal meteor-stream of the two great November-exhibi- 
tions of the next two years. And again, near Pekin in China, 
on November 15 (a.m.), 1867, and in America on November 14 
(a.m.), 1868 (agreeing also with showers observed in England 
on November 14 (a.m.), 1868, and November 15 (a.m.), 1871 *) 
bright showers of Leonids scarcely inferior to the maln stream’s 
apparitions were witnessed, which, as was pointed out at the 
same time by Mr. Marsh, belonged to a branch-stream following 
the main stream, instead of preceding it, by about the same time 
of between twelve and fifteen hours as the other one, in its 
appearances. The Leonids of the 15th ult. appear thus to have 
appertained to this following branch-stream which the earth was 
probably passing through with sensible sparse gaps and con- 
densations, for about 14 hours (according to its formerly 
observed durations) between dusk and daybreak on the night 
of the 14th-15th ult. ; and if the two following and preceding 
side-streams are equally long, evenly extended belts with the 
main stream of meteoric matter, it may perhaps be expected 
that on the mornings of November 14 and 15 next year, the 
earth will come to be immersed in the preceding and following 
meteor-belts, respectively, while the main current encountered 
like the fellow-streams, six hours later than their predicted 
times this year will be traversed in the daytime of November 14, 
1897, producing a principal meteor-shower then which in the 
full daylight will not be visible in England. In the years 1899 
and 1900, on the other hand (the latter year a non-leap year), it 
seems probable that the brief but imposlng scene of the earth’s 
passage through the main stream, if no disturbances in its path 
since 1866-7 have warped the current out of its expected course, 
will occur more opportunely and more favourably for English 
watchers about at midnight and at 6 o’clock a.m. respectively, 
and one or both of them perhaps in pretty full completeness, on 
the mornings of November 15. 
The general colour of the heads and streaks of the Leonids 
seen on the 15th ult. was dull yellowish white, or yellow, but 
some of the largest had bright white nuclei with white streaks. 
The head of one very fine one only, at 5.58, was slightly 
greenish, when brightest ; but the long and broad dense streak 
which it left visible for 6 seconds, was of the same golden yellow 
‘colour as that which prevailed in the fainter streaks of ordinary 
durations (2-4 secs.), and of ordinary lengths (10°-20°), and 
which was now and then seen most distinct and vivid in the 
spindle-shaped foreshortened streaks left near the radiant point. 
This green and yellow-tinted meteor, brighter than Jupiter, and 
the last which I observed, shot through 40°, overhead across the 
dawn-lit sky, from the direction of « Zeonzs so exactly to 
8 Aurige, and directed there towards Cafe//a, that that bright 
star-pair, prolonging the line of the streak’s golden wand, as it 
appeared, which just reached the former star, looked with the 
streak like a grand jewelled sceptre in the sky, whose long staff 
only slowly faded.* ; 
‘1 British Association Reports, 1869, pp. 302-3. 
2 [bid., 1872, pp. 96-7. See also 1866, pp. 64-5 and 137. 
8 Had I provided myself with a hand-spectroscope for this eccasion, this 
meteor’s streak and a few of the most enduring ones left by the brightest 
meteors of the shower, would doubtless have presented very interesting 
features for spectroscopic study. By comparison with the sky-positions re- 
corded of this meteor’s apparent path at Walthamstow by Mr. Besley, a real 
path of the meteor is obtained by the base line of 28 miles W.S.W.-E.N.E. 
between the stations, from 90 miles over a point on the border of Sussex and 
Hampshire, halfway from Midford to Alton, to 27 miles over a point 5 miles 
east from Didcot, directed from a radiant point at 150° + 22°, then 60° above 
the S. by E. horizon; the length of the sloping path being 74 miles, which 
the meteor described, as was noted here, in 14 second. The beginning and 
end heights, and the speed of flight thus indicated by the calculation of 
nearly so miles per second, not surpassing much the real meteor-speed—43 
miles per second—of the Leonids, lend much probability of correctness to 
NO. I417, VOL. 55] 
Fine meteors leaving streaks along their whole path-lengths 
for four or five seconds appeared at 
| <= 
Apparent path = § 
We * | os Streak ; Appearance ; 
pion Mag: = 5 - sg a £ | and Rematee 
| 3 
nue From Tore = oo 
| 
a.m. ; 4 “ 
£54. |' > 1 152 + 52 | 200:-+ 89 | 40 | 1 
2.2 XY 45 +°67 | 352 +.36 | 4o | 1} r 
2.29 | .>1 79 - 31) 54:= 10 |\z0 |. 4 | Low in S.W.: 
2.33,\|,, 2 134 — 10 | 132 — 16 | 6| }| Low in E. 
3.6 Sirius | 100 + 8 82 — 1 | 20 4 | In S. ; white streak. 
31r | 9 22 +14 | 17+ g] 6 1} | In W.; (approx. path.). 
3-12 | Sirius| 26 +145 6 + 25 | 25 | 10) In W.; white streak. 
4-14 4% | 165 +10} 176 + 44 | 35 | 13 | Fromp Hydra (?); white 5 
| with broad. white streak 
| for 6 secs. 
4.45@)) >t | 173 +9 179 #: 4) 8 | 10 
558 | yf | 135 + 30 7 + 45 |.40 | 14 | Long yellow streak for 6 
| | secs. 
Seen also apparently, at Walthamstow, by Mr. W. E. Besley, with the 
following description, and positions :— 
5:59 2 141k + 23 | 95 +:22 | 43| — | (The Zxglish Mechanic, 
| | November 20, 1806.) 
The meteors nearly all moved very swiftly, and described 
their paths, in general, at rates of about 10~-15° in half a 
second. 
Much careful selection was needed from the mapped paths of 
the Leonids to obtain a satisfactory position of the radiant-point, 
as quite a volley of fine long-pathed streak-leaving meteors from 
a radiant, apparently in Crater or Hydra, far south of Leo, 
streamed in direction across Zeo and Cancer, surpassing the 
Leonids in speed, brightness of the heads and streaks, and 
lengths of path, and frequently confusing themselves with the 
cometary shower as if they were exceedingly erratic members 
of it. One very resplendent one, whiter and brighter than 
Jupiter, set out, at 4.14 a.m., exactly from Jupiter in the middle 
part of Zeo, and shot swiftly up across 6, 6 Leonzs, 35° to near the 
hindermost foot of Ursa Major, leaving a dense white streak 5’ 
broad for about six seconds all the way—a path which it would 
be difficult to reconcile with a radiant point near gamma 
Leonzs, although the meteor in all respects, except in its globular 
white head, exactly resembled a Leonid. A position is given 
for December in Prof. Heis’ and Dr. Neumayer’s ‘‘ List of 
Southern Radiants,” of 1867,! at 148°, — 34°, which although 
much further south than one near A Hydre at about 150°, — 12°, 
which seemed to be active on the 15th ult., yet shows that 
there are showers with southern declinations at this time of the 
year near the meridian of the shower from Zee, almost as 
oppositely directed (and consequently as swift) in their motions 
as the Leonids are, to the motion of the earth. The meteors. 
of the 15th ult. and of a few neighbouring nights, also showed 
signs of radiation from near 6, or a and « Cancrz, at about 
137, + 17°; and ona chart of meteor-paths recorded last year 
on the mornings of November 13-15, I find four long-pathed 
tracks traced back toa common radiant-point at 132°, +17, near 
8 Cancrz, which they fitted well, and which perhaps confirms 
this place. 
Omitting then as doubtful Leonids for this reascn (or else 
for their distances from the chief focus of the radiation), out of 
the thirty real or possible Leonids mapped, all but those whose 
courses’ prolongations backwards would cross the small area of 
the sky formed by completing the circle half traced by stars in 
Leo's sickle, the twenty-two paths remaining, all diverged from 
a circular tract 10° in diameter, having a point at 148°, + 23°, 
near the small star x Zeonds, at its centre. But a circle only 
6° in diameter, round a centre at 149° + 24°, also includes 
nineteen of these tracks very evenly distributed, if three at the 
south-west border of the larger circle are omitted ; and accord- 
the view adopted here, that though differing in the apparent magnitudes, 
and somewhat in the estimates, as described, of the path’s apparent lengths 
at the beginning and end points, the two accounts at Walthamstow and 
Slough really referred both to the same bright long-pathed shooting-star seen 
to begin its course at both the stations in remarkably close proximity to a 
radiant-point almost identical in position with the principal one on that night 
in Leo. Seven meteor paths of Leonids were mapped in the hour from 5.38 to 
6.42 a,m. on November 15, by Mr. Besley, of 1st-3rd magnitudes, and the 
last of them in strong-growing daylight, as bright as Jupiter. This bright 
white one, and three others, all beginning in and near Leo's sickle, diverged 
almost accurately from a common point at 149° + 22°, the remaining three 
only deviating, in respect to radiation, from 4° to 8° from that position. 
1 British Association Reports, 1868, pp. 405-6. i 
