146 REPORT — 1876. 



Hay, S. Wales. — " Dec. 22. As our servants -were sitting at dinner by the 

 kitchen -window, two of them were startled by the sudden appearance of a 

 brilliant meteor, apparently descending in the east, with a little inclination 

 to north. It was not so large as the moon, but much larger than Saturn or 

 Mars; white and like lightning, with a very quick course, leaving a train as 

 broad as itself, and preserving its full size tiU lost behind the top of au oak 

 tree at a little distance, whose branches, though leafless, seem to have con- 

 cealed it from view. The next day I found, by means of a compass and 

 joined ruler, that its azimuth was E. by N., its inclination towards north 

 about 10°; the upper window-frame, where it probably came in sight, 48°, 

 and the top of the tree about 18° above the horizon. I have not as yet 

 heard of any other observation of this remarkable meteor. The position of 

 Hardwicke Vicarage, where it was seen, according to the Ordnance Map is 

 long. W. 3° 4' 23", lat. N. 52^ 5' 20"." 



A comparison of this account with the observation at Braughing by Mr. 

 Daw affords a rough detenmination of the real path and direction and of the 

 probable place and altitude of this unusually bright meteor's course above 

 the earth's surface ; but owing to the absence of estimates of the duration of 

 its flight, no probable value of the meteor's real velocity can bo assigned. 

 The course of this daylight meteor appears to have been from about 45 miles 

 above the southern part of AVarwickshire to about 15 miles above the centre 

 of Northamptonshire, disappearing about 50 miles from Mr. Daw's position 

 near Ware, in Herts, where he states that no sound of an explosion fol- 

 lowing its appearance could be perceived. The direction of its flight was 

 from a radiant-point at about E. A. 250°, N. dccl. 20° (near /3 Herculis), distant 

 about 45° above and westward from the apparent place of the mid- winter 

 sun, which was shining brightly above the southern horizon when the meteor 

 came in sight*. 



The bright meteor seen in twilight on April 15th, 1876, at Biistol and 

 Hawkhurst (see the accompanying fireball-list), must have passed over Ire- 

 land or the Irish Channel far west from Bristol, as the position of its apparent 

 path there, near the setting planet Yenus, differed very little from the simi- 

 lar account of its ajiparent path in Kent. The position of its radiant-point 

 cannot have been the usual one in Virgo (about 196°, -j-0) in the early part of 

 April, as its recorded path at Bristol, prolonged backwards nearly parallel to 

 the ecliptic, crosses the constellation Virgo about 20° south of the equator in 

 the neighbourhood of this position, proceeding from the direction of a region 

 where no well-established radiant-point of ordinary shooting-stars has hitherto 

 been observed. 



The next large meteor, of which many contemporaneous observations were 

 communicated to the Committee, some of which have also appeared in the 

 daily newspapers, was that of July 25, 1876, about 10'' 5" p.m. Several ac- 

 counts of this fireball are contained in the list of large meteors accompanying 

 this Report. It resembled the fireball of September 14th, 1875, in appearance, 

 excepting that a decided green hue of the nucleus was observed, and a some- 

 what more voluminous train of red sparks and fragments appears to have 

 followed the head. The light which it cast was not so intense as that of the 

 fireball of September 14, and no sound of a detonation is related to have 

 been perceived. The radiant-point of this large fireball was near Antares ; 

 but, owing to its recent appearance, the descriptions of it hitherto collected 



* ' Monthly Notices ' of the Eoyal Astrouomical Society, vol. xxxvi. p. 217. Mr. Daw's 

 place of observation, given as "Brangling" in that arcnnnt, should have been Branghing, 

 neai- Ware, in Herts. 



