REPORTS 



ON 



THE STATE OF SCIENCE. 



Report on Observations of Luminous Meteors, 1859-60. By a Com- 

 mittee, consisting of James Glaisher, Esq., F.R.S., F.R.A.S., 

 Secretary to the British Meteorological Society, fyc. ; J. H. Glad- 

 stone, Esq., Ph.D., F.R.S. %c; R. P. Greg, Esq., F.G.S. fyc. ; 

 and E. J. Lowe, Esq., F.R.A.S., M.B.M.S. $c. 



In presenting a continuation of the Reports on the Observation of Luminous 

 Meteors, it will be seen that the work is now placed in the hands of a Com- 

 mittee, and it is with sincere regret that in presenting their first report, 

 they have to announce the loss of Professor Powell, who died on the 11th 

 of June, 1860. The preceding twelve reports were carried on solely by 

 Professor Powell, but from the further prosecution of this labour he felt 

 compelled to retire some little time since on account of failing health, having 

 made arrangements for the continuation of the reports. Within the past 

 year there does not seem to have been any unusual exhibition of meteors, 

 either in August or in November; and there is little to be added to the ob- 

 servations themselves ; in one instance only was the same meteor seen by two 

 different persons, viz. that observed at Wrottesley Observatory and at Baldoyle 

 (county Dublin), on March 10, 1860: this meteor was remarkable for its 

 form and for its variation in colour, as noticed by both observers. It is much 

 to be regretted that the observations of this meteor yet collected are insuf- 

 ficient to trace its path, velocity, &c. ; it is scarcely possible that so re- 

 markable a meteor, visible from points so distant, can have passed unnoticed, 

 and it is very desirable that if any observations may have been taken of it, 

 that they should be forwarded to the Committee, for the purpose of being 

 submitted to calculation. 



M. Julius Schmidt, now of the Royal Athens Observatory, in a communi- 

 cation to M. W. Haidinger of Vienna, read by the latter at Vienna the 6th 

 of October, 1859, before the Imperial Academy, has made some valuable 

 observations upon some phenomena relative to the luminous tails of meteors, 

 of which a resume is given in the Appendix. An interesting paper has 

 appeared in the Philosophical Magazine, April I860, "On Luminosity of 

 Meteors from Solar Reflexion," by R. P. Greg, Esq. ; a brief analysis is given 

 in the Appendix. In the Journal of the Franklin Institute there is a very 

 interesting account of a large meteor seen over a large extent of country by 

 daylight, on November 15, 1859; an abstract of this paper also appears in the 

 Appendix. 



1860. B 



