38 



REPORT — 1861. 



" Mr. Greg himself is, however, favourable to the notion that the larger and 

 probably aerolitic class of fire-balls, e.g. such as those seen in July or at long 

 and uncertain intervals, are dissimilar in character and orbit to the small and 

 more common sporadic meteors. It would be, however, premature as yet to 

 offer any dogmatic opinion on this point. 



" Upon the whole, it may be taken with some confidence that there are 

 periods when a larger class of fire-balls and falling stones are more numerous 

 than at others ; and it is rather singular that this class does not seem to be so 

 abundant at the August epoch as might have been expected; in fact, they 

 seem to be more numerous towards the end of July and the first three or 

 four days in August, the great epoch being the 9th and 10th days." 



No. 8. — A. In the volume of the Dublin British Association Report, page 143, 

 it states that M. Coulvier-Gravier did not assign any reason why more meteors 

 are seen in the east quarter than the west quarter of the heavens. But 

 Mr. Bompas seems to have given a very neat solution (page 144), that is, on 

 the supposition that all meteors are equally distributed in space, not only the 

 reason of that, but why we see more towards 6 a.m. than at 6 p.m. Pro- 

 bably his reason is a correct one, and perfectly sound ; there may possibly 

 be others. 



In diagram No. 1 let it be supposed there are meteors, AB, crossing obliquely 

 and in one direction ; and it is possible the majority of them may really do 

 so (or the obliqueness of their paths may be considered the resultant, or ap- 

 parent resultant, of the combination of the earth's motion in her orbit and of 

 the meteor's motion). If the average of meteors pass the earth's orbit ob- 

 liquely, such a result as fig. 1 shows might likewise explain how it is we should 

 see more meteors in the early morning than in the evening, and also a ten- 

 dency to see a larger proportion in the east than in the west. 



* The uumhers here appended are taken from Mr. Greg's Catalogue published in the 

 Oxford Reports for 1860, given here for the sake of comparison. 



