OBSEKVATIONS OF LUMINOUS METEORS. 27 



of the regular star-showers of August and November, and those of smaller 

 interest and abundance in January, April, October, and December, with 

 suitable maps and instructions to enable them to obtain, without unnecessary 

 pains bestowed in preparations or expense, the most careful and complete 

 records of their extraordinary displays. In order that the operations of the 

 Committee may thus continue to be systematically directed towards the 

 objects which have acquired important interest from the discovery of the as- 

 tronomical connexion of shooting- stars with the orbits of comets, introducing 

 the strictest methods of inquiry into the laws of their appearance, the Com- 

 mittee earnestly desire the r^ewal, in the coming year, of the support which, 

 since its first formation, by their correspondence and cooperation, observers 

 have hitherto freely contributed to the British Association. 



Notices of the appearance of twenty-two fireballs and smaU bolides have 

 during the past year been received by the Committee, fourteen of which 

 were compared to the apparent size and brightness of the moon, and the 

 latter include three detonating meteors of the largest class. Descriptions of 

 some of the largest of these meteors are contained in the accompanying list 

 and in the following paragraphs of the Report. No notice of the fall of an 

 aerolite during the past year has been received, although the occurrences of 

 large meteors during the months of autumn and spring, preceding April last, 

 were more than ordinarily frequent. Of one of these, which appeared with 

 unusual brilliancy in Cornwall, Devonshire, and the south-western counties 

 of England on the evening of the 13th of February, it is possible to estimate, 

 at least approximately, the locality and the real elevation of its flight. 

 Careful observations of such phenomena when they appear are, however, 

 again recommended by the Committee to all observers who may have the 

 necessary astronomical skill, and the rare opportunity to note their brilliant 

 courses by the stars. 



In the discussion of some papers on Meteoric Astronomy which follow the 

 foregoing observations, it will be seen that in the hands of its talented origi- 

 nator. Prof. Schiaparelli, the cosmical theory of periodical shooting-stars has 

 received fresh and valuable illustrations, and the apparently inexplicable 

 grouping of radiant-points for several successive days in the neighbourhood 

 of a general centreof divergence, if not explained, appears to depend upon effects 

 of planetary disturbances of a single meteoric stream from which the parasitic 

 radiant-points have been derived. The discussion of such examples is sim- 

 plified, and their complete explanation is, perhaps, not beyond the reach of 

 the persevering application with which skilled astronomers in every country 

 are now bent on the solution of the complicated and intricate geometrical 

 problems presented to them by the distribution and features of the known 

 radiant-points of shooting-stars. To a brief description of this interesting 

 memoir are added, at the close of the Eeport, some notices of works which 

 have recently appeared on the more general branches of meteoric science. 



I. MeTEOES DOtTBLT OBSERVED. 



1. A Table of the real heights of sixteen shooting- stars doubly observed in 

 England during the meteoric shower of August 1870, independently of the 

 observations recorded at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, was presented 

 in the last volume of these Reports. A comparison of the observations made 

 on that occasion at the Royal Observatory, (jreenwich, with those recorded 

 at the other stations, enables the real paths of thirteen meteors (ten of 

 which are new to the former list), seen by Mr. Glaisher's staff of observers, 

 to be satisfactorily determined j and the real heights and velocities of the 



