iOO REPORT — 1877. 



Observatory, Oxford, the remainder being extracted from this or other pub- 

 lished lists and from occasional records of meteor-tracks furnished to the 

 Committee by various observers. 



No very important occurrences of star-showers during the past year have 

 been recorded. The Leonids and Andromedes of November 1876, the 

 meteors of the 1st to 3rd of January, and the Lyrids in April 1877 were 

 either very scarce or quite absent on the annual dates of maximum of those 

 showers, as far as a watch for their appearance could be kept successfully ; 

 but clouds prevented observations on the Leonid meteor-nights of November 

 13th to 15th. Some meteors of this shower were seen on the mornings of 

 November 19th and 20th by Mr. Denning, who also observed a conspicuous 

 shower of shooting-stars very similar to the Leonids on the mornings of 

 November 26th to 29th, with a radiant-point in Leo Minor. The existence 

 of this meteor-stream in close proximity to that of the Leonids, with which 

 its meteors may occasionally happen to be confused, deserves attention, and, 

 if possible, exact verification by future observations. A considerable abun- 

 dance of meteors, amounting apparently to an active star-shower, and inclu- 

 ding several bright ones, was noticed in America during the night of October 

 1 8th to 19th, 1876, the radiant-point being approximately between Taurus and 

 Auriga. Scarcely any Orionids were seen on the preceding and following 

 nights by Mr. Denning during the annual period of this well-defined October 

 shower. A similar fitful shooting-star shower (unconnected with the Per- 

 se'ids, since the radiant-point of that shower was far below the horizon at 

 the time of apparition) took place in New Zealand on the night of August 

 13th ; and Mr. Corder described a very accurately defined shower of small 

 meteors from a radiant-point in Pegasus, in about two hours, on the night 

 of September 21st, 1876, when at an earlier hour of the evening no such 

 frequency of shooting-stars had been observed elsewhere. Collection together 

 in such brief and sometimes abundant flights or swarms is a marked and 

 significant peculiarity of showcr-metoors, and it is very desirable to determine 

 the position of the radiant-point of the meteor-swarm in such cases with as 

 much accuracy as possible. In the stormy weather and full-moon light at the 

 beginning of this year nothing could be seen of the annual January star- 

 shower ; and on one night at least (that of the 20th to 21st) of the April 

 meteor-period, with perfectly clear sky, Mr. Denning observed only four 

 Lyrids during five hours of uninterrupted watch. Although certainly a 

 shower of very brief duration, this is a very remarkable scarcity of its meteors 

 to he observed on either the first night following or on the very night itself 

 of this meteor-shower's expected maximum display in the year 1877. 



With the exception of the Persei'ds of August 1876 and 1877, the Gemi- 

 nids on the nights of the 11th and 12th of December, 1876, furnished the 

 most abundant annual or periodic star-shower of the year. In point of 

 numbers (about twenty or thirty meteors per hour for one observer) the 

 Greminid display occupied a middle place between the above two August 

 showers, including, like those showers, several meteors as bright as Jupiter 

 or Yen us, only less attractive in appearance than the well-known Persei'ds, 

 from their somewhat smaller speed and from the less frequent occurrence of 

 enduring light-streaks on their courses. The shower was observed in France 

 as well as in England, and the position of its radiant-point in the north-eastern 

 part of Gemini was well determined. Of its two nights of chief intensity 

 the maximum of the shower appears to have been somewhat more strongly 

 marked on the 11th than on the 12th of December. Of the two August 

 showers, while that of 1876 was extremely meagre, it was not much surpassed 



