OBSERVATIONS OP LUMINOUS METEORS. 107 



The ouly meteor from the latter radiant-point (near the zenith) was the very 

 brilliant one seen to fall vertically elsewhere, and described as proceeding 

 from the same radiant-point by Mr. Clark, at York. The Lyraids appeared 

 white and swift, and generally left no streak ; but when seen foreshortened 

 near the radiant-point they sometimes appeared bluish or yellowish, and left 

 persistent streaks. The sky was overcast on the night of the 20th, and no 

 meteors were observed. 



At the Eoyal Observatory, Greenwich, during an interval of clear sky on 

 the 19th, between half-past ten and half-past eleven o'clock, six meteors 

 were registered by one observer of Mr. Glaisher's staff, of which three -vyere 

 as bright as first-magnitude stars, and four diverged from the neigh- 

 bourhood of o Lyrae. The Lyraids were all bluish white, with short appa- 

 rent paths, leaving streaks. On the night of the 20th, the sky at the Eoyal 

 Observatory, Greenwich, was too cloudy for further observations of the April 

 shower. 



During the night of the 19th of April, it appears, from observations which 

 wore continued at the lladcliffe Observatory at Oxford, by Mr. Lucas, until 

 the appearance of daybreak, that the activity of the April meteor-shoAver was 

 very brightly maintained until the morning of April 20th. During a strict 

 watch kept for shooting-stars on that morning from I'' a.m. until 4'' a.m., the 

 sky was quite clear during the. first hour, and only crossed occasionally by 

 clouds from the south-west dm-iug the last two hours of the watch. Towards 

 4 o'clock a.m., the brightness of the full-modn light gave way to that of the 

 approaching dawn ; and a thick haze beginning at this time to overspread the 

 sky, at length obscured aU but a few stars of the first and second magnitudes. 

 The appearances of twenty-six meteors were recorded ; five in the first, five 

 in the second, and sixteen during the last hour of the watch ; the numbers 

 of Ist-magnitude shooting-stars visible in the same times being two, one, and 

 six. Seventeen of all the meteors noted were Lyraids, of which the numbers 

 recorded during the same times were four, three, and ten. Six of the Lyraids 

 were as bright as first, and six as bright as second-magnitude stars, and they 

 appeared white even in the strong moonlight. Their courses were generally 

 very rapid, sometimes 20° or 30° in length, and occasionally leaving a per- 

 sistent streak. Of the nine remaining meteors, all but two proceeded appa- 

 rently from a radiant-point in Cygnus eastward from that in Lyra, not far 

 from the position in May and June of a radiant-point WG in that constel- 

 lation ; four courses prolonged backwards intersect each other close to e Cygni, 

 near which one of these unconformable meteors also moved with a short ap- 

 parent path. The brightest meteor seen during the watch moved from_ the 

 direction of e Cygni, bursting when it had reached the brightness of Jupiter, 

 on a long course from y Cassiopeia; nearly to Capella ; its duration was two 

 seconds, and it was followed by the next meteor, which appeared as bright 

 as a 2nd-magnitude star, moving upon exactly the same course. Two other 

 unconformable meteors were directed from the radiant-points S^j in Yirgo 

 and Comae Berenices. 



The tracks of the seventeen Lyraids, prolonged backwards, all passed 

 through a region of radiation including the chief stars of Lyra and the stars 

 $, o Herculis, where a circular area, about 15° in diameter, with its centre at 

 E. A. 275°, ]Sr. Decl. 32°, would include all the directions of the LyraVds that 

 were observed, and was probably very near the central point of divergence of 

 the group. The radiant-point being near the zenith when the Lyraids were 

 most numerous in the last hour of the watch, and their courses extending 

 round it towards all parts of the sky, this apparent place of the radiant-point, 



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