A CATALOGUE OF OBSERVATIONS OF LUMINOUS METEORS. 95 



Number of meteors from 10" to 10'^ 45™ p.m. = 12* 



11"^ 30™ to 12'' „ = 8* 

 12'' to 1" A.M. = 24 



1" A.M. to 2" A.M. = 30 



Total 74 



Of these meteors, twenty-four left trains. 



From 10" 30™ p.m. to 11" p.m., ou the 10th, at Baveno (Italy), Mr. A. S. 

 Herschel saw 36 meteors. Of these nine left trains : four were equal to 1st 

 magnitude stars. 



On the night of the 10th, at Greenwich, there were seen by Messrs. "W. C. 

 Nash, C. W. Jones, and P. Trapaud, of the Magnetical and Meteorological 

 Department of the Eoyal Observatory, from Q^ p.m. to 1'' a.m., sixteen meteors 

 larger than 3rd magnitude stars. The sky was mostly cloudy. 



On the same evening, at Weston-super-Mare, fifteen meteors larger than 

 2ud magnitude stars were seen, by Mr. W. H. Wood, from lO*" 15™ to 11'' 45" 

 P.M., who reports as follows : — 



" The 8th was overcast ; the 9th clear at intervals ; the lOth and also the 

 11th clear and fine. The 9th and 10th were pretty good displays, but far 

 inferior to that of August 1863. The meteors were sporadic, with occasional 

 cessations ; and they exhibited a singular predominance of red and yellow 

 colour." 



Messrs. T. W. Webb and T. M. Simkiss report, respectively, from Hay 

 (South Wales) and Wolverhampton, regarding the meteors of the 10th 

 August : — 



•' A good many shooting-stars on the night of the 10th, but not so many on 

 the whole as on the previous night. 



" Not so many shooting-stars on the night of the 10th as on the previous 

 night, but of the same character and general directions." 



III. * Heights of Shooting-staes,' by Professor Newton. 

 (Am. Joum. Sci., 2nd ser., vol. xxxvi., July 1864.) 



Many of the heights of shooting-stars obtained by Brandes, Benzenberg, 

 Boguslawski, Heis, Schmidt, &c., have been unavoidably advanced on slender 

 grounds. The telegraph is now employed to insure identity among the 

 meteors simultaneously observedf. Professor H. A. Newton has, however, 

 collected upwards of 300 examples where the heights of falling-stars have 

 (previously to this practice) been credibly determined. A similar inquiry was 

 undertaken for the British Association, on the occasion of an unusually bright 

 display of meteors observed in England on the 10th of August 1863, and the 

 heights collected were found to correspond with the average of the heights 

 observed on that occasion J. A few large bolides are contained in Professor 



* Sky partly overcast and hazy ; afterwards clear. A fifth part of the lime was spent in 

 recording the meteors. 



t From tlie 6th to the 10th August (1864), 93 meteors were doubly observed between 

 Eome and Civita Vecchia by the intervention of the electric telegraph. Parallax varying from 

 15° to 4(J° was observed in the zenith of Rome, corresponding to heights of meteors between 

 50 and 150 miles fi-om the surface of the earth. 



X Eeport, 1863, p. 332. Note at the foot of the page. 



