350 REPORT— 1873. 



certainty, from tlie want of recent observations of the comet ; but every pro- 

 bability of its being seen was favourable to its reappearance last year ; and 

 those who awaited it, as well as many unexpectant watchers of meteor-showers, 

 were surprised by the display of shooting-stars which it suddenly presented 

 at the first approach of darkness, on the evening of Wednesday the 27th of 

 last November. The cloudy state of the sky unfortunately prevented ob- 

 servers throughout the south of England from witnessing the sight ; but in 

 Scotland and north of the Midland Counties in England many uninterrupted 

 views of it were obtained. In Europe, Asia, the Mauritius, and in North 

 and South America observers were equally fortunate in recording its appear- 

 ance ; and few great star-showers have hitherto been more satisfactorily ob- 

 served, as well as more abundantly described. In an astronomical point of 

 view, the agreement of the time and other circumstances of its appearance 

 with the supposed path of the lost comet is so exact as to prove that the 

 calculations made by astronomers of that comet's orbit cannot be affected by 

 any errors of a large amount ; and a proof almost certain is thus obtained 

 that the disappearance of the comet is owing to no unexplained distur- 

 bances of its path ; but that, like some former comets of variable bright- 

 ness, it has not improbably faded for a time out of view, and that at some 

 future time a reasonable expectation may be entertained of rediscovering 

 the missing comet pursuing its original path in repeated visits to the earth's 

 neighbourhood and to the field of telescopic observations. 



Only partial views of the ordinary periodical meteoric showers of De- 

 cember, January, and April last have this year been obtained, of which some 

 descriptions are added to the close of this Report. Reductions of the scat- 

 tered meteor-observations on ordinary nights of the year are an important 

 subject of the Committee's inquiries, which have been kept in view in their 

 operations of the past year. Captain Tupman having obligingly placed a list 

 of nearly 6000 such observations (made by himself) at their disposal, the 

 greater part of which he has reduced to their most conspicuous radiant- 

 points, this special object of the Committee will be most effectually assisted 

 by the publication of the valuable meteor list which has thus unexpectedly 

 come into their possession. A graphic projection of the radiant-points has 

 been prepared, which will be printed as an illustration of the copious infonna- 

 tion that will be gathered by observers from the contents of Captain Tup- 

 man's list. The catalogue will be distributed this year to observers interested 

 in the research ; and to enable useful meteoroscopic charts to be added to it, 

 it is hoped that the Members of the British Association will continue to assist 

 the Committee with such liberal communications of their observations as 

 they have hitherto supplied. 



APPENDIX. 

 I. Meteors Doubly Observed. 



In the section of the last Report corresponding to this Appendix, a con- 

 siderable list of simultaneous observations of shooting-stars in the August and 

 other meteor-showers of the previous year was presented of which no calcu- 

 lations had at that time been undertaken. The attention of the Committee 

 having been much occupied during the past year with the questions and cor- 

 respondence relating to the unusual meteor-display of the 27th of November 

 last, their intention of calculating these meteor correspondences has not been 

 carried out ; and a large addition to the number of duplicate observations of 



