OBSERVATIONS OF LUMINOUS METEORS. 199 



• " Colour, in the dried state, dark purple. 



" Hah. Coast of Durham, 30 to 35 fathoms {Rev. A. M. Norman). 

 " Examined in the dried state." 



" Hymeniacidon virgulatus, Bowerbauk, n. sp. 



" Sponge virgultose, slender. Surface smooth. Oscula simple, dispersed. 

 Pores inconspicuous. Dermis abundantly spiculous ; spicula acuate, slender, 

 same size as those of the skeleton, dispersed. Skeleton rather open and 

 cavernous ; spicula acuate, long and slender. 



" Colour, in the dried state, cream-white. 



" Hah. Coast of Durham, in 20 to 30 fathoms {Bev. A. M. Norman). 



*' E.xamined in the dried state." 



Report on Obsewations of Luminous Meteors during the year 1874-75, 

 bi/ a Committee, consisting of J ahes Glmshek, F.R.S., of the Royal 

 Observatory, Greemo'ich, R. P. Gkeg, F.G.S., F.JR.A.S., C. Brooke, 

 F.R.S., Prof. G. Forbes, F.R.S.E., Walter Flight, D.Sc, F.G.S., 

 and Prof. A. S. Herschel, F.R.A.S. 



The operations of the Committee during the past year were restricted to col- 

 lecting and recording occasional observations of meteors, without renewing 

 periodical requests to observers to watch for the meteor- showers of best 

 knowia dates and characters of annual recurrence. The list of collected 

 accounts of luminous meteors is therefore less ample, but not less remarkable 

 and important, than in former years. The falls of aerolites (as will be seen 

 in the concluding Appendix) which have been placed on record since the last 

 Eeport are more than ordinarily numerous and interesting. A mass of 

 meteoric iron fell on the 24th of August, 1873, at Marysville, California, and 

 is one of the very few metallic irons the actual descent of which has been 

 witnessed. In the following montJi, on the 23rd of September, 1873, -a 

 number of meteorites fell near Khairpur, in the Punjab ; and it is also 

 related that in the month of December in the .same year, while the British 

 army halted on the banks of the Prah, an aerolite fell in the market-place o( 

 Coomassie, and was regarded by the native population as a portent of evil. 

 On the 14th and 20th of May, 1874, aerolites fell at Castalia, in North 

 Carolina (U.S.A.), and at Virba, in Turkey, the last of which was noted in 

 the last Report ; and examinations of both of these meteorites have now been 

 made. The last stone-fall of the past year took place near Iowa (U.S.A.) on 

 the 12th of February, 1875 ; and of this meteorite also special analyses were 

 made in the United States, of which some unforeseen results were lately 

 announced by their author, Mr. A. W. Wright, as will be described in the last 

 part of this Ileport. In comparison with meteoric irons, it was found that this 

 meteorite gave off, by gentle heating in a vacuum, carbon oxides as occluded 

 gases in greater abundance than hydrogen, which is the principal gaseous 

 constituent of meteoric irons ; and it was observed that the electric spectrum pf 

 the gaseous products resembled very closely that found most frequently in 

 comets, and even in one condition to exhibit most distinctly the green 

 nitrogen line coinciding with a conspicuous line in the sun's coron?.. A 

 meteor of unusual size appeared over Victoria, in Australia, on the 14th of 



