A CATALOGUE OF OBSERVATIONS OF LUMINOUS METEORS. 325 
surround the provisional path very closely, but are more crowded together 
north from, and below the provisional track. The ten lines of sight, drawn 
in perspective from the point of disappearance, and strengthened in propor- 
tion to the proximity and early view of the meteor (contained in the first and 
last columns of the Table), indicate a point 15° northward and 6° below the 
centre of the projection as the most probable direction from which the meteor 
approached its bursting point. The corrected path is horizontal directed from 
azimuth 225° (W. from 8.), and commenced thirty miles above the mouth of 
the Scheldt in long. E. 3° 7’, lat. N. 52° 6’; the termination, as before, being 
twenty-eight miles above the mouth of the Seine in long. W. 0° 23’, lat. N. 
49° 49', thirty miles N. of Caen, and seventy miles S. of Worthing in Sussex. 
At Caen, in Normandy, a loud detonation followed the disappearance of the 
meteor. The length of the path is 220 miles, performed in four or five seconds 
of time. 
It is probable from one account of the first appearance, and from the irre- 
gular form which this meteor afterwards assumed, that a group of many frag- 
ments composed the meteoric mass after its collision with the atmosphere. 
IV. Mereoric Suower or Aprit 1863, and Conclusions of Professor 
H. A. Newton. 
A considerable fall of meteors was observed in England on the morning 
of the 21st April 1863, from Newe (Aberdeenshire) in the north, to Weston- 
super-Mare (Somersetshire), and Hawkhurst (Kent), in the south of England ; 
followed, on the evening of the 22nd, by a total absence of meteors during 
several successive hours (see Catalogue). At 3" a.m., on the 21st April, the 
number was 40 per hour for a single observer. The definite nature of this 
phenomenon led to a comparison with the great shower recorded by Herrick 
to have happened on the morning of the 20th April 1803. The observations 
rendered it certain that the date of the cosmical phenomenon had advanced 
twenty-four hours in the course of sixty years, but the cause was not 
detected*. 
Professor H. A. Newton, in the American Journal of Science and Art 
(vol. xxxvi. p. 145), has shown that the precession of the equinoxes produces 
a delay of one day in seventy years, upon the return of all the known periodical 
meteoric showers, of April, August, November, and December. In the follow- 
ing lists, the dates of the star-showers of early history have been corrected by 
this amount from the moveable equinoxes of the early dates to the fixed equinox 
for the year 1850. 
1st. The April shower. 
B.c. 687. March 16 corresponds to a.p. 1850, April 19°9. _ Biot. 
25 19: 
15. ” ” ” ” ” 9 6. Biot. 
A.D. 582. Ave sill a 5 + » 181. Chasles. 
1093. April 9°6 + 3 - » 20°7. Chasles. 
1094, » 10 uy a a » 20°8.  Chasles. 
1095. - 96 is = = » 20°2. Herrick. 
1096. » 10 = Ns AS » 21°3. Herrick. 
1122. » 106 es 3 a », 20°2. Herrick. 
1123. Pel | - A . a 205K Chasles, 
1803. » 196 F =r, a y» 19°9, Herrick. 
Mean...1850, April 20-1 
* Bulletins of the Belgian Academy of Sciences, 2nd Series, vol. xvi.-p. 7. 
