82 KE PORT— 1870. 



from the sea at Lossiemouth, and crossing over Inverness towards Kintail. 

 The length of the part of the path observed at Glasgow was seventy-four 

 miles, performed in four seconds of time, with a velocity of eighteen and a 

 half miles per second. The direction of the meteor was from R. A. 12°, N. 

 Decl. 14° in Pisces, very near the position (R. A. 12°, S. Decl. 2°) of a 

 radiant- point T * of shooting-stars observed on the 27th of September, 1864 1. 

 Another meteor of the same group was doubly observed on the 24th of 

 September, 1866 ; and its velocity was found to be, like that of the present 

 fireball, less than the average velocity of shooting-stars, or about twenty-three 

 miles per second. (Report for 1866, p. 124.) 



1869, December 12th, e"" IS"" 30' p.m., G. M. T., Glasgow, Hawick, and 

 Oundle (Northamptonshire). Although the description of the meteor's course 

 at the northern stations of Glasgow and Hawick are incomplete, yet on 

 account of their great distance, about 270 miles from Oundle, near Peter- 

 borough, where the meteor's path was well recorded by the stars, a good 

 approximation of the meteor's real path is obtained by assuming the well- 

 known position (about R. A. 100°, N. Decl. 35°) of the radiant-point in 

 Gemini of the December meteors to be represented very nearly by the ob- 

 servations of the present meteor intersecting each other, when prolonged 

 backwards at a point about R. A. 125°, N. Decl. 35°. The lowest stars of 

 Ursa Major being less than 20° above the horizon at Oundle, the height of 

 18° or 20° at which the meteor there was estimated to have passed "below 

 Ursa Major," is evidently overrated ; and an altitude of 12° wUl, with the 

 usual interpretation of estimated altitudes near the horizon, fairly represent 

 the apparent altitude of the meteor's course. After making these preliminary 

 assumptions with respect to the apparent directions of the meteor's flight, it 

 appears, from their comparison together, that the fireball commenced its visible 

 path at a height of 100 mUes above Bergen in Norway, and shot with a 

 straight course of about 400 miles, to about fifty miles over Edinburgh, where 

 it disappeared. An observer of its luminous progress at Dundee states that 

 it proceeded with a slow shooting motion, apparently as if forcing its way 

 through the air for about thirty seconds ; and the statement indicates the un- 

 usually long time occupied by the meteor in its transit across the North Sea. 

 The description of its time of flight at Oundle, by Mr. William Rickett, was 

 that the meteor continued its motion, with an apparent speed by no means 

 rapid, for 15 or 20 seconds. Adopting Mr. Rickett's account as probably the 

 most accurate, and employing his approximate value, or seventeen and a half 

 seconds, for the meteor's time of flight, it follows that the course of about 

 400 mUes was described with a velocity of twenty-three miles per second. 



1869, December 29th, 10'^ 58°' p.m., G. M. T., London and Sandhurst (Kent). 

 The vertical descent of the meteor in the west at Sandhurst, near Hawkhurst 

 in Kent, and its motion from north-north-west to south-south-east, a few 

 degrees below Jupiter, at Notting Hill, London, indicate the direction of its 

 motion as apparently from the radiant Aj^, near S Cassiopeiae, for the end of 

 December and beginning of January. Adopting this radiant-point for the 

 real direction of its path, the place where the meteor passed near Jupiter, at 

 London, was about forty-five mUes high over Winchester ; and the meteor 

 passed in the direction of a line from Bath to Chichester, from seventy miles 

 above Amesbury (Wilts) to thirty-five miles above the neighbourhood of 

 Bishops Waltham (Hants). Supposing the meteor's apparent path to have 



* U in the list of the Eeport for 1868, p. 403, at E. A. 17°, S. Decl. 10", enduring from 

 September 6th to November 23rd. 



t Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society for December 9th, 1864. 



