288 REPORT— 1867. 



water-colour pamting of a nearly ivTiite Dodo, which he was inclined to 

 believe might represent this lost species ; but he trusted that the French 

 naturalists in that island would succeed in obtaining actual relics of it. 



Report on Observations of Luminous Meteors, 1866-67. By a Committee, 

 consisting of James Glaisher, F.R.S., of the Royal Observatory , 

 Greenwich, President of the Royal Mici'oscopical and Meteorolo- 

 gical Societies, Robert P. Greg, F.G.S., E. W. Brayley, F.R.S., 

 Alexander S. Herschel, F.R. A. S., and Charles Brooke, F.R.S., 

 Secretary to the Meteorological Society. 



The object of collecting observations of Luminous Meteors to serve as a basis 

 of reference for calculations, and pointing out whatever conclusions may be 

 drawn from them, is kept in view by the Committee, in presenting with this 

 Report a continuation of the Catalogue of former years. 



The apparent places of the meteors are given either (most conveniently) by 

 their right ascensions (a) and declinations (o, + north, and — south), by the 

 weU-known method of their aUineations with certain neighbouring stars, or 

 (in some cases of, generally speaking, less accurate approximations) by their 

 apparent azimuths and altitudes with respect to the visible horizon. 



A large proportion of the descriptions contained in the present Catalogue 

 refer to great meteors recorded on the morning of the 14th of November, 

 1866. A long list of meteors of a less striking description than those se- 

 lected for entry in the Catalogue, noted on tlie same morning, was received 

 by the Committee from observers, whose reports on the jiarticular phenomena 

 of the shower are noticed, Avith more or less detaQ, in the fourth Appendix 

 of the Catalogue. 



The gi'eatest multitude of the meteors on the morning of the 14th of No- 

 vember made their appearance exactly during the hour from one to two 

 o'clock A.M., which was the hour appointed beforehand by the Committee, 

 with a view to secure the cooperation of observers, for making simultaneous 

 observations of the shower. 



One meteor during the hour was simultaneously recorded at Sidmouth, at 

 Cardiff, and at Strettou, Hereford ; and the length of the terminal portion of 

 its phosphorescent streak, which remained visible for ten minutes, was found 

 to be eighteen miles (Appendix 1.). 



The heights of three other meteors of the November shower were satisfac- 

 torily foimd. One, which left a remarkably persistent luminous streak over 

 the town of Dundee, was from 51 to 57 miles above the earth's surface. 



One meteor also, on the 10th of Augiist last, was simultaneously obsei-ved 

 at London and at Birmingham. This disappeared at a height of 76 miles 

 above the neighbourhood of Bristol. 



The supposed region of the true radiant-point of many of the individual 

 meteors in the Catalogue is indicated by the observers. Excellent means 

 are thus afforded for distinguishing the obvious peculiarities of light and 

 motion which characterize meteors from particular radiant-points. To assist 

 observers in this inquiry, all the observations hitherto entered in the Cata- 

 logue are mapped on a series of charts, the first four maps of which series 

 are now lithographed, and 25 impressions are presented to the British Asso- 

 ciation with this Report. 



The position of each radiant-point amongst the constellations is conspi- 

 cuously entered upon the maps, with its annual dates of maximum, and dura- 



