A CATALOGUE OF OBSERVATIONS OF LUMINOUS METEORS, 289 



tion ; and upon the same chart the meteor-tracks proceeding from the parti- 

 cular radiant-point are denoted by such plain signs as to indicate directly 

 the particular radiant-point with which they are connected. 



In the case of the best-established star-showers, the meteor-tracks engraved 

 upon the maps will generally be found to tell beforehand the course which 

 meteors appearing at any part of the sky from one of those radiant-points 

 will pursue across the sky, like wires stretched for the meteors to run upon 

 (to use the words of one observer of the November shower last year). 



In other cases, where the position of the radiant-point is not yet so well 

 established, its printed place must be regarded as provisional and as reqiiiring 

 further confirmation by observations to decide its real place. A copy of one 

 of the first four maps exhibited, showing the radiant-point of the November 

 meteors, as observed at the Eoyal Observatory, Greenwich, will be fovmd in 

 the fourth Appendix of the Catalogue. The three other plates refer to the 

 special radiant-points in January, August, and October. The whole series 

 will be in readiness to distribute to observers this year before the reap- 

 pearance, as anticipated, of the great star-shower on the morning of the 

 14th of November next. 



If the space of the Committee has been taxed to secure insertion in the 

 Catalogue for the multitudinous observations of meteors of the 14th of No- 

 vember last*, it is much more difficult to represent adequately more than 

 twenty French, and about as many German descriptions of a large detonating 

 fireball seen by daylight in the north of France on the 11th of June last, 

 which the Committee have received. The luminous streak left by the meteor 

 was visible, at many places, for more than an hour after the first appearance 

 of the meteor, and exhibited unusual contortions. Its occurrence very near 

 the date of the 9th of June, marked last year by the prodigious stonefall of 

 Knyahinya, and in the present year by the fall of three aerohtes atTadjera, 

 in Algeria, is pointed out, in Appendix II. and III., as probably connecting 

 these three extraordinary occurrences together in a single aerolitic period. 



At the end of the Eeport is placed an addition to the Catalogue of large 

 meteors and aerolites, by Mr. E. P. Greg, in continuation of that printed in 

 the volume of Reports for the year 1860 ; supplying the omissions, and 

 bringing up the date of that Catalogue to the present time. It will, it is 

 believed, be found a perfect repertory of this kind of meteoric occurrences, 

 for the possession of which the British Association will congratulate itself. 



Abstracts of a number of important papers on the subject of shower- 

 meteors are deferred until a time when the maximum display of the Novem- 

 ber star-shower will probably have been observed in America in November, 

 1867, and the spectacle, in that case, will probably give rise to a new discussion 

 on the subjects of which they treat. Some recent papers by M. Daubree, on 

 the synthesis and classification of meteorites, will also then be reviewed. 



Approaching hours of daylight will probably deprive observers in the 

 British Isles of aU participation in the specially interesting display of the 

 November meteors in the current year, although the stage of the gradual 

 commencement of the shower will be better observed in England than in 

 America. It was thus that the August meteors, this year, were nearly in- 

 visible, from the hoirrs of daylight appearing in England ; but according to an 

 American account contained in Appendix IV., they were visible there " in 

 countless numbers" soon after midnight, on the night of the 10th of August 

 last. 



* The Gri-eenwich obseitations of meteors "which hitherto have appeared in these Cata- 

 logues, will in future be printed in the volumes of the Greenwich Magnetical and Meteoro- 

 logical Observations for their respective years. 



1867. X 



