A CATALOGUE OF OBSERVATIONS OF LUMINOUS METEORS. 337 
a lower elevation the meteor, in the words of M. Quetelet, “ will have entered 
a medium which has not the elements necessary to its continued brilliancy ;” 
for here the potential heat extracted in a given tract of the meteor’s flight 
suffers a rapid decrease, and the density of the air to be ignited, a sudden 
increase upon the values of these quantities in the higher regions of the 
atmosphere. Mr. Marsh produces no evidence that the pressure encountered 
by a meteorite in its flight through the air is in reality constant, in the 
manner supposed in this explanation. 
VIII. 
An exceedingly brilliant meteor appeared over the United States of America 
on the 6th of August 1860, at 7" 38™ p.w., New York mean time, about five 
minutes after sunset. Professor Newton has estimated the path of this 
meteor at 225 or 250 miles in length, accomplished with a geocentric velocity 
of eighteen miles per second, from thirty-nine miles over the southern line 
of Pennsylvania to thirty-six miles high, W. or N.W. of Buffalo. Corrected 
for terrestrial attraction, the geocentric velocity is 16-6 miles per second, and 
the heliocentric velocity 30-4 miles per second towards R. A. 67° 45!, N. 
Decl. 33° 25!. 
The hyperbolic elements of this meteor cannot be reduced to elliptic 
elements of its orbit by any but the largest corrections applied to the indi- 
vidual observations. 
IX. ‘ Puystave pu Gonz,’ by M. Ad. Quetelet (Brussels, 1861). 
In a chapter devoted to shooting-stars, M. Quetelet describes the combined 
observations organized by himself in 1824 at Brussels, to determine the velo- 
cities of shooting-stars. Up to that time, only five instances existed where 
the velocities of shooting-stars had been determined, and M. Quetelet added 
six cases to the number. Their average velocity was seventeen miles per 
second. This velocity is planetary, but Benzenberg continued to maintain 
that shooting-stars migrated from the moon. 
M. Quetelet first drew attention to the prevalence of shooting-stars upon 
the 10th of August, on the occasion of an observation reported by M. Sauveur, 
at the Session of the Roy. Acad. of Brussels, 1836, Dec. 3rd*. 
The late E. C. Herrick, at Newhaven, U.S., made an independent announce- 
ment of the same date in the American Journal of Science (vol. xxxiii. 
p- 176), on the occasion of an accidental view of the phenomenon in 1837. 
The 2nd January, 15th October, and 7th December are characterized by 
M. Quetelet as favourable for the return of star-showers, and his Catalogue of 
similar phenomena has been made the subject of important conclusions by 
- Professor Newton (Appendix No. IV.). 
X. A New Barrish Merzorric Iron (Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal, 
New Series, for July 1862). 
A new British meteoric iron, the second hitherto discovered, has been 
analyzed by Dr. Murray Thomson, and described by Dr. J. A. Smith, of the 
Royal Physical Society of Edinburgh. The meteorite was excavated, in 1827, 
from a bed of firm clay 4 feet below the surface, in the village of Newstead, 
* In England this date was noticed in the Philosophical Magazine for 1821 (p. 347), by 
Mr. John Farey, in a remarkable series of questions concerning shooting-stars. Mr. T. 
Forster devoted the date to a short discussion on shooting-stars in his volume of the 
. oe Calendar,’ published in England in 1824. 
1863. Z 
