A CATALOGUE OF OBSERVATIONS OP LUMINOUS METEORS. 217 



rlance and duration of their luminous streaks, are also points of principal and 

 recurring interest. 



Owing to the exceptionally overcast state of the sky in England during 

 the whole of the winter and summer months of the past }'ear, the number of 

 observations of the ordinary shower-meteors of October, December, January, 

 and April last have not onl}^ been unusually deficient, but observers in 

 England were unfortunately deprived of more than partial views of the great 

 star-shower of the 14th of November last. Several interesting notices of the 

 bright display, from transatlantic and continental stations, will, however, 

 be found in the third Appendix ; and that and previous reappearances of the 

 star-shower are further illustrated by papers in the fourth Appendix of the 

 Report. Some insight into the phj'sical structure of the November meteoric 

 cloud has, it wiU thus be seen, been derived from the simultaneous observa- 

 tions of its recent principal displays at places as far apart in longitude as 

 Shanghai, Calcutta, Greenwich, and the observatories of the United States. 

 It appears that the central and most compact portion of the stream was 

 twice encountered in the years 1866 and 1867, while in the years 1865 and 

 1868 respectively, two outlying currents of greater width, but of less consi- 

 derable density, were crossed, one on either side of the central stream, and 

 separated from it, the former in front of, and the latter behind its margin, by 

 an equally broad well-defined space comparatively devoid of meteors. This 

 curious circumstance, first pointed out by Mr. Marsh, of Philadelphia, is 

 drawn from observations at the conclusion of Appendix IV. 



A review of several important pa2)ers published, and received by the Com- 

 mittee, during the past year, occupies the whole of the fourth and last 

 Appendix of the Catalogue. The consideration now generally bestowed upon 

 observations of luminous meteors is sufficiently rewarded by the occasional 

 perusal of such papers of eminent scientific interest in the special branches 

 of aerolitic and meteoric astronomy ; while the present zeal of observers is 

 evinced by their association together in France and Italy to record in a 

 regular and systematic form, under the direction, at Metz, of a luminous 

 meteor committee like that of the British Association, the transitory pheno- 

 mena of meteors and faUing-stars. In consequence of the combination of 

 observers to observe shooting-stars together on stated nights, it cannot be 

 doubted that a great accession to the present state of knowledge of this 

 class of bodies will thus, in the course of a few years, be obtained. The 

 star-showers of April last, which, on account of the unfavourable state of the 

 weather, were unperceived in this country, were yet conspicuously seen at 

 Moncalieri near Turin, and at Urbino, and the radiant-points of these 

 meteoric epochs of the 10th, 20th, and 30th of April, already previously 

 established by the British Association, received an unexpected confirmation. 



With the object of furthering the views, and assisting the progress of meteoric 

 science in its most highly productive sphere of observation, the Committee, 

 in presenting this their Tenth Annual Eeport, express the hope that the 

 same success may continue to attend their future efforts which has rewarded 

 them in the first period of their existence, and which was originally be- 

 queathed to them by the great and talented author of the annual Reports to 

 the British Association on observations of luminous meteors, when, in the 

 year 1860, after compiling the present Catalogue alone and presenting it 

 unassisted to the British Association for fifteen years, he for the first time 

 placed the preparation of these Reports, and the annual collection of obser- 

 vations of luminous meteors, in the hands of a committee. 



1869. a 



