154 REPORT — 1876. 



in 1876, has been communicated to the Committee by observers at Birming- 

 ham, Bristol, Buntingford (Herts), Hawkhurst (Kent), Sunderland, and York; 

 and the past year's list of meteor observations at the Eadcliffe Observatory, 

 Oxford, contains very numerous observations on the meteors of the shower. 

 The state of the sky was generally very favourable for observations (although 

 the moon had passed its first quarter during the second week in August), and 

 the number of observations is rather ascribable to this cause than to any 

 great intensity of the shower which was observed. The maximum hourly 

 frequency of the meteors noted by one observer at any time during the watch 

 scarcely exceeded twenty-five or thirty meteors per hour, of which five or sis 

 were unconformable and the rest Persei'ds ; and the latter were not con- 

 spicuous in brightness or in leaving very persistent streaks. A few large 

 Persei'ds were recorded, details of the brightest of which (on the 11th at 

 11" 22"", and on the 13th at 9'' 27'") are included in the descriptions of 

 large meteors given in the foregoing list. The maximum frequency of the 

 meteors took place during the night of the 10th to 11th of August, when 

 one observer might count from 25 to 30 Persei'ds in an hour ; but the number 

 visible on the nights of the 9th and 11th were much less than this, and not 

 more than 15 or 20 Persc'ids could be noted in the same time. Their radia- 

 tion was in general accurate, and the centre of divergence of the recorded 

 paths was not far from the usual position of the radiant-point of the shower 

 near rj Persei. The number of unconformable meteors visible during the 

 period of the annual watch was about 6 or 8 per hour, and more than 60 of 

 their paths were mapped. The radiant-points which they indicate arc very 

 numerous, their tracks belonging, with very little apparent ascendancy of 

 any particular shower, to almost all those known to be in activity during the 

 time of continuance of the August shower. Several accordances of meteors 

 simultaneously observed at distant places, besides those of large meteors above 

 mentioned, are contained in the observations ; and of these and of other points 

 of special interest in the several descriptions the Committee trust to com- 

 municate the details, and an account of the results of a complete discussion 

 which they are at present undergoing, in another year's Report. 



The annexed extract from the 'English Mechanic' of September 8, 1876, 

 contains, besides some observations on the shower, a notice of a lai'ge Perse'id 

 of which some other exact observations are described (at p. 134) in the general 

 fireball list of this Rex^ort : — 



" August Meteors. — The following note of the August meteors as seen from 

 this i)lace may interest some of your readers. On the night of the 10th, 

 between 9"^ 15"" and P 15", 131 were observed. Of those seen before mid- 

 night the greater portion appeared to have a radiant-point in Cassiopeia, but 

 those seen afterwards came from the cluster j^ Persei. Tlio numbers observed 

 during this month are as follows : — 



Date, 1876, August 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th, 27th. 



Meteors observed 21 134 25 8 13 12 



One of the meteors seen on the 13th deserves special mention. It appeared 

 at about 9'' 27™, as nearly as I could judge, in semidarkness, moving in a line 

 from X Persei, and passing with a rapid motion across a small star distant 

 about 30' (minutes of arc) vertically over B Ursa; Majoris. It was as bright 

 as Yenus, and it left a tail for 4 or 5 seconds. — J. Pabneli,, Folkestone," 



