OBSERVATIONS OF LUMINOUS METEORS. 79 



lat. 53° 57', W. long. 2° 6'). The point of disappearance agrees within two 

 or three degrees with the place of disappearance observed by Miss Reade, 

 and measured by Mr. J. B. Reade, at Bishopsboiirne in Kent ; and the entire 

 course equally, exactly represents the apparent elevation (at altitude 30°, due 

 north) as seen at Calne, in Wilts. At these latter places its motion would 

 appear almost vertically downwards, as it was observed at Llandudno and in 

 London. The radiant-point of its approximate course is at E. A. 300°, N. 

 Decl. 14°, near a Aquilas, where no well-established radiant-point of ordinary 

 shooting-stars has hitherto been detected at that season of the year. 



The writer of an extremely interesting article in the ' Daily News,' on the 

 probable real path of the fireball, cites the description of its course by an 

 observer at Sheffield as " apparently from north to south, radiating from the 

 zenith." The place of first appearance was found to be (very nearly as above 

 described) at a height of seventy-six miles over the neighbom-hood of 

 Sheffield. At the latter place, very near to the meteor's real course, the 

 observer describes the meteor as having an irregular contour, and compares 

 the apparent size of its surface to one-sixth of that of the moon. As both of 

 the observations at York and Heighington differ from the Sheffield description 

 in showing that the meteor moved towards the west and north, while the 

 real course, concluded from the above observations, would appear at Sheffield 

 radiating from the zenith towards the north-north-west, it is not impossible 

 that the Sheffield observer, by a not uncommon inversion of the points of the 

 compass, misrepresented the actual direction of the meteor's flight, which 

 should have been described as apparently from south to north. 



The meteor seen at Leeds, in twilight on some evening about the 25th of 

 October last, was probably identical with this one, as it was so extremely 

 brUhant as to attract the observer's attention while it was stiU overhead ; 

 and it " shot across the zenith towards the sun's place at the time," dis- 

 appearing, "when a Kttlepast the zenith, in sparks and tails." This note of 

 its appearance agrees perfectly well with the description of its apparent 

 shape and magnitude at Sheffield, and it corroborates the observations at 

 York and Heighington, that the meteor moved towards the west. The 

 altitude of 52° in the west-north-west from Leeds, at which the point of 

 extinction, as above determined, probably occurred, might very aptly be de- 

 scribed by an observer, who first caught sight of the meteor when it was 

 nearly overhead, as " going out when a httle past the zenith." 



1869, November 6th, about 6" SO"" p.m., G. M. T., CornwaU, England, 

 Wales, and Scotland. The great brightness of the fireball and of its 

 persistent streak, which is described by Mr. Pengelly, of Torquay, as having 

 remained in sight fuUy fifty minutes, rendered it a conspicuous object even 

 beyond the vicinity of places where its luminous course was nearly through 

 the zenith. A comparison of several pubhshed descriptions of the meteor, 

 communicated to the British Meteorological Society by Mr. A. S. Herschel, 

 places the point of first appearance of the nucleus ninety miles over Erome, 

 in Somersetshire, the first point of the luminous streak at a height of forty- 

 seven miles over Launceston, and its termination, at the extinction of the 

 meteor, twenty-seven miles over the sea very near St. Ives in Cornwall. The 

 whole length of its luminous course was 170 miles, performed in about five 

 seconds, with a velocity of about thirty-four miles per second. The length 

 of the bright streak, which gradually diffused itself in width and assumed a 

 serpentine form, was fifty-four miles, and its greatest width, when it was 

 first seen by Mr. Pengelly at Torquay, was about four miles (Proceedings 

 of the Brit. Meteor. Soc. for June 1870, p. 144). In that paper the meteor's 



