30 



REPORT 1871. 



3. Preparations for observing the meteors of the 20th of April last were 

 also made at many stations in England and Scotland with only partial 

 success. A meteor of the April shower was, however, observed simul- 

 taneously at Birmingham and Bury St. Edmunds, of which the following 

 descriptions were recorded : — 



Although the times at both the stations were uncertain to rather more 

 than a minute from true Greenwich time, and the approximate times of the 

 meteor's appearance recorded at the two stations differ from each other by 

 rather more than two minutes, yet the very similar descriptions of its ap- 

 pearance at the two stations, and the fact that no other meteor at either 

 station preceded it or foUowed it within a quarter of an hour, during a very 

 attentive watch, as well as the good agreement together of the apparent 

 paths recorded by the two observers, render it scarcely possible to doubt that 

 the same meteor was simultaneously observed. The apparent length of path 

 and duration are, however, much longer at Bury St. Edmunds than at Bir- 

 mingham, where the meteor was seen foreshortened near the radiant-point ; 

 and on this peculiar circumstance Mr. Wood (in a letter to Mr. Herschel) 

 makes some important remarks, which offer a veiy interesting field for fur- 

 ther observations. " My view of the meteor's course was evidently very 

 oblique, and yours, very direct (nearly at right angles), would obscure a faint 

 tail to me. There is also another peculiarity which I have observed in 

 oblique-visioned courses, that they appear to endure about half the time of 

 that obtained by direct vision, which I fancy arises from its invisibility to 

 one observer, whilst it is visible to the other in the earliest portion of its flight, 

 and the amount of the invisible course to bear some proportion to the recorded 

 differences in the durations." In perfect agreement with this explanation the 

 point of disappearan ce of the meteor is well fixed (by combining the observations) 

 at a height of about sixty-five miles above a place near Bourne, in Lincolnshire. 

 The observations, on the other hand, do not agree in determining the point of 

 first appearance. The first and faint half of the meteor's apparent path, as 

 recorded at Bury St. Edmunds, is placed too far from the north pole of the 

 heavens to be nearly comformable to the radiant-point near Z Lyrse (from 

 some point near and below which the apparent course of the meteor, as seen 



