26 REPORT— 1871. 



Report on Observations of Luminous Meteors, 1870-71. By a Com- 

 mittee consisting of James Glaisher, F.R.S., of the Royal 

 Observatory, Greenwich, Robert P. Greg, F.R.S., Alexander 

 S. Herschel, F.R.A.S., and Charles Brooke, F.R.S., Secre- 

 tary to the Meteorological Society. 

 The object of the Committee being, as in the previous year, to present a 

 condensed Report of the observations which they have received, and to indi- 

 cate the progress of Meteoric Astronomy during the interval vrhich has 

 elapsed since their last Eeport, the reviews of recent publications relating to 

 ileteoric Science which will be found in the sequel are preceded by a state- 

 ment of the results obtained by the observers, who have during the past 

 year contributed a valuable list of communications on the appearances of 

 luminous meteors and regular observations of star-showers to the Com- 

 mittee. The real heights and velocities of thirteen shooting-stars obtained 

 by the cooperation of Mr. Glaisher's staff of observers at the Royal Obser- 

 vatory, Greenwich, during the simultaneous watch for meteors on the nights 

 of the 5th to 12th of August last, are sufficiently accordant with the real 

 velocity of the Perseids (as already 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 astro- 

 nomical theory of the August meteor-stream. Shooting-stars were observed 

 to be more than usually frequent on the nights of the 17th of August and 

 24th of September last, accompanying on the latter night a rather brilliant 

 display of the Aurora. On the nights of the 18th-20th of October last the 

 sky was bo generally overcast as to conceal the view of any meteoric shower 

 which may have taken place on that well-established meteoric date. But on the 

 mornings of 13th-loth of November last a satisfactory series of observations of 

 the November star-shower (so far as its return could be identified) recorded 

 at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, and at several other British 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 extreme brightness with which it was visible in the 

 following year (1868) are extracted from astronomical and meteorological 

 journals kept in Switzerland and Scotland. A short view of the sky on the 

 night of the 12th of December last was obtained at Birmingham, where the 

 accurate divergence of the meteors observed by Mr. Wood from the radiant 

 point in Gemini of the December meteors sufficed to verify the periodical 

 return of that meteoric current. The state of the sky was not favourable 

 for observations of meteors on the first two nights of January ; but during 

 two hours, when the sky was clear, on the night of the 20th of April last, 

 the well-known group of April meteors was noted, on the periodical date, 

 diverging in considerable numbers, and with the characteristic features of 

 brightness, and leaving a persistent streak from the direction of a nearly fixed 

 centre in the constellation Lyra. One meteor of the shower, simultaneously 

 observed at Birmingham and Bury St. Edmunds, afforded sufficiently accu- 

 rate materials for calculating its real distance from the observers, and the 

 length and velocity of its visible flight relatively to the earth. The com- 

 bined observations of the regularly recurring meteor-showers during the 

 past j'ear having at present proved successful in contributing some valuable 

 materials to their history, the Committee propose to resume during the 

 coming year a systematic watch for their return, and to provide observers 



