OBSERVATIONS OF LUMINOUS METEORS, 273 
Breslau in the same province. At the former places the meteor first 
appeared to emerge and separate itself from the disk of the planet Mars (then 
southing, at -no great altitude), and to pursue its way westwards, gradually 
descending towards the horizon, where it disappeared behind a cloud. Dr, 
Sage, who noted this appearance of the meteor at Rybnik, was looking 
attentively at the planet Mars when he thus saw the meteor apparently issue 
from it, and the planet appear as if it was breaking up and dividing into two 
parts. After a first estimation, roughly stated at 20 seconds, Dr. Sage con- 
sidered that the time occupied by the meteor’s flight until it disappeared was 
really not more than ten or twelve seconds. The observers at Ratibor, not 
far from Rybnik, were equally positive of the meteor’s first appearance “ as if 
issuing from the red star in the south;” and their average estimate of the 
time of flight was reckoned to be 15? seconds; one observer, however, espe- 
cially able to judge correctly of the duration, would not admit that the 
meteor occupied more than ten seconds in its flight. The time of flight 
recorded by the assistant at the Breslau Observatory was, as above mentioned, 
nine seconds for the whole period of the meteor’s course. The point of dis- 
appearance of this meteor being known with great exactness, and the obser- 
vations of the earlier part of its flight being unusually accurate, the visible 
track along which it shot over Hungary, Austria, Moravia, and Bohemia to 
the mountain confines of the latter state with Saxony, is calculated with very 
small probable errors by Dr. Galle. 
Most probable apparent position of 
Point of first appearance.| Point of disappearance. the Radiant-point. 
Velocity 
rey in - 8. 
Long. E. P Long. E of Path| miles 
North |Height B- ©) North |j . 
Ver | Lati- fin 8 {Om Lati- pies) ee Azimuth | altitude. | RA. [Declination. 
5 jude, . ci 
1013 {17°16’*| 47°.30'| 20:5 | 14° 20'*! 50°55’| 285 |285(a)} 30°35’ | 14°32’ | 246° 42’|—19° 19! 
18°46) | Piet ae 
: e 
70 or80 miles 8.W. from | Near the village Gross- homens crested 247° 10! |—20° 35! (a) 
Vienna, and a few] schiénau, in Saxony, traction. 247° 56! |—22° 31! (d) 
miles south of Raab| and the peaks of the 
in Hungary. Lausitzer Gebirg, be- 
tween Saxony and Bo- 
hemia, 
The meteor appears from the calculation to have had an unusually long 
path, and to have accomplished it with very considerable meteoric speed. 
The velocity of 283 miles per second (a) is obtained if the three most cer- 
tain measurements of its time of flight at Breslau, Rybnik, and Ratibor, all 
fixing it at very nearly ten seconds, are regarded as quite free from doubt, 
and as requiring no material corrections. The second calculated velocity of 
18-4 miles per second (b) is obtained by adopting the average between the 
first and second estimates of the meteor’s duration (20 seconds and 10 or 
12, say 11 seconds—average 15:5 seconds) by Dr. Sage at Rybnik, and the 
equally general average of the ten observers’ accounts (pupils in the school 
at Ratibor), who were asked there by Dr. Reimann to state their recollections 
of its duration by counting seconds with a seconds’ clock. The average of 
these ten estimates (including the very positive minimum one of 10 seconds 
referred to above) was 15-7 seconds. A duration for the whole of the 
* The geographical longitudes (E. from Greenwich) are taken from those of Dr. Galle’s 
paper (referred to Ferro Isle as the starting-point) by subtracting 18° (about, Ferro Isle in 
the Azores, west from Greenwich) from the geographical east longitudes given by Dr. Galle. 
1874, T 
