399 
Now that the so-much-dreaded cholera is rapidly approaching 
our shores, it behoves everyone to be able to recognise the preli- 
minary symptoms of the disease and to guard against them. We 
would therefore most strongly recommend all who can to read a 
most valuable and instructive paper by Mr. John Murray, the 
Inspector-General of Indian hospitals, on “Cholera : its Symp- 
toms and Early, Treatment,” which was read at the recent meeting 
of the British Medical Association at Plymouth. It would be a 
very great boon to society, and probably. the saving of many 
lives, if this paper could be published as a penny pamphlet. 

TuREE exhibitions, giving free education, and tenable in the 
department of General Literature and Science, or in that of 
Engineering and Technical Science, will be open to new students 
at the Hartley Institution, Southampton, at the commencement 
of the autumn term next month. 
AN earthquake took place in Chiriquiin the State of Panama 
on the 26th June, at 7.50 P.M. It was rather severe, but no 
damage was done. 
THE U.S. sloop of war Famestown sailed from Valparaiso on 
the 3rd June, to determine the position of certain reefs and islands 
reported to have been discovered between the Equator and 24° N. 
THE district round Wagga-Wagga, in Australia, was dis- 
turbed on June 8 by a somewhat violent earthquake shock ; 
and, owing to the rarity of the occurrence of such phenomena, 
it has caused much interest. The shock consisted of a succession 
of sharp but continuous vibrations, lasting altogether for about 
twenty seconds, the motion appearing to be from the N.W. to 
the S.E. There was felt, at 16 minutes to 3 P.M. (local time), | 
a slighter second shock, preceded like the first, by a dull 
rumbling sound, 
IN a letter to the American Fournal of Science and Art, Dr. 
B. A. Gould reports satisfactory progress with respect to the 
Cordova Observatory. Although the enterprise has met with 
an exceptional amount of obstacles, Dr. Gould, who writes on 
the 26th of April last, expected to begin the mounting of the 
instruments in the course of a few days. We shall probably 
recur to his interesting communication. 


OBSERVATIONS OF LUMINOUS METEORS 
IN THE YEARS 1870-71* 
a object of the Committee was, as last year, to present a con- 
densed report of the observations which they have received, 
and to indicate the progress of Meteoric Astronomy during the 
interval that has elapsed since the last report. A valuable list 
of communications on the appearances of luminous meteors has 
been forwarded to the Committee in the course of the year, as 
well as regular observations of star showers. The heights and 
velocities of thirteen shooting-stars obtained by the co-operation 
of Mr. Glaisher’s staff of observers at the Royal Observatory, 
Greenwich, during the watch for meteors on the nights of the 5th 
to the 12th of August last, are sufficiently accordant with the 
velocity of the Perseids, as previously determined by similar 
means in the year 1863, to afford a satisfactory conclusion that 
the results of direct observation are in very close agreement with 
those derived from the Astronomical Theory of the August 
Meteor Stream. On the mornings of the 13th to the 15th of 
November last, a satisfactory series of observations of the No- 
vember star shower (as far as its return could be identified), re- 
corded at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, and at several 
other British Association stations, concurs with very similar 
descriptions of its appearance in the United States of America, 
in showing the rapid decrease of intensity of this display, since 
the period of greatest brightness which it attained in the years 
1866 and 1867. 
Notices of the appearance of more than twenty fire-balls and 
small bolides have, during the past year, been received by the 
Committee ; fourteen of the former were compared to the appa- 
rent size and brightness of the moon, and the latter include three 
detonating meteors of the largest class. Descriptions of some 
* Report of Committee, British Association, 1871. 
NATURE 




[| Aug. 31, 1871 
of the largest of these meteors are given at length in the report. 
No notice of the fall of an aérolite during the past year has been 
received, although the occurrence of large meteors during the 
Autumn and Spring months was unusually frequent. The 
locality of one of these, which appeared with unusual brightness 
in the South of England, on the evening of the 13th of February 
can be determined at least approximately, as also the elevation 
of its path. 
A table of the height of sixteen shooting stars doubly observed 
in England during the meteoric shower of August 1870 (inde- 
pendently of the observations made at the Royal Observatory, 
Greenwich), appeared in the last volume of the British Associa- 
tion Reports. A comparison of the observations made at the 
Royal Observatory, Greenwich, on that occasion, with those re- 
corded at the other stations, enables the paths of thirteen meteors, 
seen by Mr. Glaisher’s staff of observers (ten of which are new to 
the former list), to be determined ; and the heights and _veloci- 
ties of the meteors thus identified are entered in the Report. 
The results are as follows: The average height of 16 meteors 
contained in the last report was 74 miles at appearance and 48 
miles at disappearance ; of 13 meteors (given in the present list), 
72 miles at appearance and 54 miles at disappearance; of 20 
meteors (observed in August, 1863), at appearance 82 miles, at 
disappearance 58 miles. The present average heights are thus 
somewhat less than those observed in 1863, but they agree more 
closely with the general average height at first appearance, viz., 
70 miles, and that at disappearance, viz , 54 miles. Theaverage 
velocity of the Perseids (relatively to the earth) observed in the 
year 1863 was thirty-four miles per second, and that of three 
Perseids in the present list was thirty-seven miles per second ; 
while the velocity on the astronomical theory, as calculated by 
Prof. Schiaparelli, was thirty-eight miles per second. 
A considerable shower of shooting-stars was also noted on 
the night of April 20 last, of which preparations were made to 
record the progress, with satisfactory results. 
The report, which was full and elaborate, contained a descrip- 
tion of the new meteor-showers noted during the few last years 
by Prof. Schiaparelli, agreeing in many points with previous 
determinations by the Committee from the observations contri- 
buted to the British Association, and suggesting considerations 
of novel and important interest in relation to the probable 
explanation of certain facts regarding the radiant points of 
shooting-stars. These are in some cases (more or less exactly) 
simple, double, or multiple points ; and in other cases present a 
wide central space or region of ‘diffuse radiation.” On the 
other hand, distinct radiant points of ordinary shooting stars, 
observed on several closely adjacent nights, although apparently 
exhibiting no other connection with each other by meteors ob- 
served on the intervening dates, sometimes including many days, 
are yet so nearly identical in their positions as to make it almost 
certain that they belong to distinct families or systems of meteor- 
streams. Prof. Schiaparelli shows, in a preliminary discussion 
of these results, that if the particles of a small meteor-cloud, 
entering from extraplanetary space the region of the sun’s 
attraction, is deflected from its primitive course by the attraction 
of one of the larger planets into an elliptic orbit round the sun, 
the velocities of its particles, in their elliptic orbits, will, in 
general, differ slightly among themselves ; and the meteor-group 
will, in consequence, extend itself into a continuous stream of 
gradually increasing length along the orbit of the group. Al: 
though the continuity of the group will be preserved along its 
whole length during this extension, yet the stream will only 
form a continuous meteor-ring (when the foremost particle oyver- 
takes the hindmost one in its course) if, while gaining one com- 
plete revolution upon the latter, this and the foremost particle 
of the stream continue to describe the same orbit round the sun, 
or an orbit which undergoes the same perturbations by the 
planets. But since the two ends of the stream, during its ex- 
tension, occupy very different positions in space, the orbits of 
the extreme particles are, in general, very differently affected by 
the attractions of the planets ; and, when the particles in advance 
have gained one entire revolution upon those in the rear, the 
group will not, in general, form a closed ring ; but an open, 
spiral curve, the ends of which, instead of exactly meeting, will 
generally overlap each other. When the first particle has gained 
a second revolution in advance upon the last, a second convolu- 
tion of the coil will generally be added to the spiral curve ; and 
no perfect meteor-annulus, for the same reason as before, will 
generally be formed by this circuit, or by any succeeding circuits 
of the meteor-stream, until its length and the number of its 
circuits are indefinitely increased. Since the thickness and 

