276 REPORT—1874. 
atmosphere are about 10 miles and 443 miles per second; and between these, 
as well as also according to trustworthy observations below and above these 
values, real velocities of aérolites, bolides, and shooting-stars have been re- 
corded. The amount of zenithal attraction depends also on the altitude of the 
apparent radiant-point—meteors that descend almost perpendicularly having 
undergone much less deflection from their course than those which reach the 
atmosphere from low radiant-points, and which appear to enter it at last very 
obliquely. Considering these various conditions, Dr. Galle obtains two new 
positions “ corrected for zenithal attraction” of the large meteor’s observed 
radiant-point, differing most from its original place in the case (bd) in the 
Table corresponding to the case where the least admissible value of the real 
velocity is assumed ; and proceeding thence to construct separately from each 
of these adopted data the meteor’s orbit round the sun, he finds it to be in 
each case an hyperbola of greater or less eccentricity, and that to make it a 
parabola the meteor’s time of flight would have to be reckoned as about 17 
seconds. Several observations of the duration, besides those already men- 
tioned, collected together, show that in only one instance out of twenty-two 
(at Bernstadt) an observer recorded the duration of the meteor’s flight as 
exceeding 10 seconds (12-15 seconds); and that by the great mass of the 
observers the time of the meteor’s flight was estimated as between four or five 
and ten seconds, making the hyperbolic character of the meteor’s orbit even 
more strongly probable than before. The following are the hyperbolic 
elements of the two orbits found by Dr. Galle, to which are added the hyper- 
bolic elements (as above referred to in these Reports), also calculated by Dr. 
Galle, of the aérolitic fireball of Pultusk. 
a. Velocity 28:5 miles b. Velocity. 18-4 miles Hyperbolic orbit of the 
per second. per second. Pultusk meteorites (sup. cit.). 
P. p. 1873, July 114-66, 1873, July 194-76, 1868, Jan. 284-5, Berl. M. T. 
Berl. M. T, erl. M. T. 
° fe} 
m. 328 21 ...... Kaede ten eteen scale BAS) El A Gaareecsshacwesessuctuuent 116 
Beth SG TGinetrceee~ oceonee eetaenave. 2GG (SG, cecesscadsvcsvacecersaserst 310 
a. A velo Suistasnaa duatuet ns Ge eeee: « OLY. axceeunan sass tenvassncarh 6 
qg-  0°6394 (perihelion distance) 0°7140.....e eee ceeceeseneceeeees 0:6935 
a.  0:4637 (4 axis major) ...... 2002: -.cccsicacepecancsntnttens 0°7547 
e. 2379 (eccentricity) ......... MARAE a stcdteasteatea tte 2277 
motion direct. motion direct. motion direct, 
The orbit is in each case nearly in the ecliptic plane, overtaking the earth at 
long. 266° 36’, and crossing the earth’s orbit towards the sun at an angle of 
about 45° in the first, and of about 36° in the second case. The resemblance 
of the first case to the hyperbolic orbit of the Pultusk meteorites is remarkable 
by the large eccentricities and perihelion distances, the direct motion and 
small inclination to the ecliptic allowing each meteor to overtake the earth 
on paths that crossed its orbit towards their perihelion points at angles of 
about 45° and 11°. It should also be remembered that the meteor of Pul- 
tusk burst and disappeared at a height of 25 miles, and the present large 
fireball at a height of only 20 miles, as if its materials were tougher or more 
compact than the perfect shower of small stones that fell at Sielk from the 
point of the Pultusk meteor’s explosion overhead. Both of these large fire- 
balls were well seen and recorded at the Observatory of Breslau ; and the con- 
current testimony of two such well investigated cases is, as observed by Dr. 
Galle, strongly indicative of a tendency of aérolitic and detonating fireballs 
to belong to a class of astronomical bodies different from comets or annual 
* From a slight change of inclination of the orbit, the descending here becomes the 
ascending node, 
