320 REPORT—1874. 
map and planisphere of all the regions of the sky visible in the latitude of 
Greenwich. A description of these two plates and directions for their use 
is added from the pamphlet of Captain Tupman’s observations, 500 copies of 
which were this year printed by the Meteor Committee of the British Associa- 
tion, and distributed under their directions to the principal Scientific Societies, 
directors of Astronomical Observatories, and leading observers of shooting-stars 
in this and other countries, from some of whom acknowledgments of its 
communication were received. Preliminary discussions of its list of meteor- 
tracks have already appeared in foreign journals (‘ Memorie della Societa degli 
Spettroscopisti Italiani,’ May 1874), of which an abstract, when the memoir 
is received by the Committee, will be given in a future Report. The latest 
general list of radiant-points observed by Dr. J. F. Schmidt, of Athens, to 
which frequent allusion is made in Captain Tupman’s list, and of which no 
copy has hitherto appeared in these Reports, is also appended here, to assist 
observers in reducing observations of occasional shooting-stars to the radiant- 
points of known meteor-showers. A general list including the two last- 
named, and accordingly, as far as such a compilation can be accomplished 
successfully, believed to be complete, is offered by Mr. Greg for the same 
purpose. From its comprehensiveness, embracing almost exhaustively all 
other radiant lists which have hitherto appeared, and adding to them many 
special references, it is believed that no fuller Table of the probably existing 
centres of meteoric radiation throughout the year can be used and consulted 
by observers, in the present largely developed state of this inquiry, as a 
standard catalogue for reducing, verifying, and recording. their occasional 
notes of shooting-stars, and for identifying meteor-streams on occasions when 
their radiant-points can be independently observed and exactly or approxi- 
mately ascertained. As intended, however, chiefly for observers in the nor- 
thern hemisphere, several of the extremely southern radiant-points of Heis 
and Neumayer’s list are for brevity not included in it. 
DESCRIPTION OF THE PLATES. 
Puiate XV. 
is a chart of the observed radiant-points, on an equidistant projection, with the North 
Pole in the centre. 
The meridians and parallels are dotted at intervals of 2°. 
The positions of the radiant-points are represented by the numbers in the first column of 
the Catalogue, enclosed in a circle, or in an irregular figure resulting from dis- 
cordances in the determinations. 
The graduations enable the observed tracks of meteors to be suitably projected upon 
tracings containing only those radiant-points proper to the season and above the 
horizon at the time of observation. 
Pruarr XVI. 
contains the projections of graduated great circles of the sphere crossing Plate XV. at 
intervals of 10° from the Pole, which occupies the centre. 
The transparent tracing, prepared as described above, is superposed on Plate XVI, centre 
over centre, and turned round until the meteor-track is symmetricaliy situated 
between two of the curves seen through the tracing. All the radiant-points from 
which the meteor could possibly proceed can then be found immediately by 
prolonging the track backwards along the curves. 
The proper curve on Plate XVI. can be selected and transferred to the tracing to represent 
the observer’s horizon.—[G. L. T.] 
