A CATALOGUE OF OBSERVATIONS OF LUMINOUS METEORS. 135 



final condensation of these vaporous masses cannot take place either very near the 

 Sun or very near the Earth. 



According to observations of the author already published*, the iron meteorites, 

 if not certain single meteoric stones (and most probably also the entire nucleus, 

 which in some cases is broken up and falls as a shower of meteorites), have the 

 form (resembling that of the meteors themselves, which is nearly that of a flame) 

 of the solid of least resistance, or of one derived from it, and received in fact from 

 the resistance of a medium they have traversed, but having in general one termi- 

 nation, and sometimes the other also, truncated to a variable extent. This would 

 seem to prove that they must once have been — as individual masses, and not 

 merely as portions of a body of which they originally formed part, nor as to their 

 preexisting materials only — in a fluid or mobile condition. These and other sig- 

 nificant circumstances are adduced in the paper as tending to the discrimination of 

 the physical changes by which meteoritic masses are affected prior to their entering 

 the Earth's atmosphere, from those which they afterwards undergo within it, and 

 from its action — the conclusion arrived at being that the solid meteorite is finally left, 

 with a slight alteration in figure, and however greatly reduced in volume, in the 

 approximate actual form — that of a bubble elongated by being impelled in a certain 

 direction through a resisting medium — in which, when in a gaseous state, it left 

 the Sun. 



The phenomena of luminous meteors (shooting- stars and fireballs) more or less 

 examined by physicists from the latter part of the preceding century (the author 

 having himself endeavoured to elucidate certain characteristic phenomena of fire- 

 balls by applying to them the results of modem science t), but which, since the 

 appearance of the persistent meteor-shower in November 1833, have been so assi- 

 duously observed and discussed by meteorologists, especially in relation to the 

 periodicity they exhibit, are shown to be entirely conformable to the views of their 

 origin which are enunciated in this paper. The petrological characters of meteor- 

 ites themselves, as recently investigated by mineralogists J , together with others 

 before noticed by the author §, are also accounted for by these views, though, with 

 respect to the former, in a very different manner from that hitherto accepted. 



The long-continued study of meteorites and of the phenomena which attend 

 their fall, affected by the consideration of the probable synthesis of ponderable 

 matter in the Sim, and — since the conclusions of Kirchhoff have been announced — 

 the special study of solar physics and chemistry, in connexion with both subjects, 

 appear to the author to justify him in entertaining the hope that he may thus have 

 succeeded — by means partly of a new deductive cosmical hypothesis submitted for 

 verification, and parti}- by uniting, and in some cases newly interpreting, preceding 

 inductions on particular points of their physical history — in effecting at least the 

 approximate solution of the problem of the origin and formation of meteorites, 

 which has been sought by philosophers from the time of the communication to the 

 Royal Society, now sixty-three years since, of Edward Howard's paper, demon- 

 strating their peculiar nature and establishing the reality of their fall||. 



In the succeeding section of the paper, relating to the " Original Forma- 

 tion of the Planets," it is remarked that the only known phenomenon in which 

 the process of the formation of the Earth as a planet is actually observed, is 



* First announced in Lectures on Igneous Meteors and Meteorites given at the Royal 

 Institution in 1839, and at the London Institution in 1841. See English Cyclopedia, Div. 

 Arts and Sciences, Meteors, Igneous or Luminous, vol. v. col. 604. 



t See " A Sketch of the Progress of Science respecting Igneous Meteors and Meteorites 

 during the year 1823," read before "the Meteorological Society," May 12, 182 i, and pub- 

 lished in the Philosophical Magazine (for October of the latter year), first series, vol. lxiv. 

 pp. 288-292 ; also, Second Supplement to the Penny Cyclopaedia, "Meteors, Igneous or 

 Luminous ; " and English Cyclopaedia, as referred to in the preceding note. 



I Reichenbach, Haidinger, G-. Rose, Maskelyne, Sorby, R. P. Greg. 



§ Syllabus of Lectures on Igneous Meteors and Meteorites, delivered at the London In- 

 stitution in 1841, as reprinted in Phil. Mag., third series, vol. xix. p. 501, with addition, 

 p. 502. 



|| Read February 25, 1802; published in the ' Philosophical Transactions ' for that 

 year, part 1. 



