OBSERVATIONS OP LUMINOUS METEORS. 101 



by this year's display, these having both been (as will be gathered from de- 

 scriptions of them and of other recently observed meteor-showers in the third 

 Appendix of this lleport) the scantiest returns of the Persci'ds that have been 

 observed for several years. 



A numerous collection of newly recorded meteor-showers is contained in 

 the same Appendix of this Iieport — partly obtained by Mr. Corder's and Mr. 

 Dcnning's observations between the autumn of the last and the summer of 

 the present year, and partly by a systematic projection and reduction by Mr. 

 Denning of long lists of shooting-star observations recently published in this 

 country and abroad. Inclusive of upwards of 1000 of his and Mr. Corder's 

 original observations, about 4000 meteor-tracks from these various sources 

 have been projected and were more or less completely reduced to their 

 radiant-points \>y Mr. Denning, with results of which the particulars arc 

 collected, and have here been arranged together in comparative tables by 

 Mr. Greg. About thirty of the meteor-showers thus observed and extracted 

 appear to be new to former lists, while about one hundred other previously 

 known meteor-shower positions are more or less exactly corroborated and 

 confirmed. The newly recorded showers are also in many cases in better 

 agreement with comctary shower-dates and positions than any formerly 

 assigned individual showers had been, and several new examples of cometary 

 coincidences are offered by them, of which, with fuller details of these new 

 vigorously and successfully conducted investigations, the third Appendix of 

 this Ileport contains a complete description. 



The Committee has now to record with profound regret, at the close of its 

 Report, the death, on the 30th of June, 1877, of Professor Heis. The first 

 astronomer who systematically devoted his attention to observing shooting- 

 stars in order to record their radiant-points, and who published in the year 

 1849 an original list of radiant-points of all the then known meteor-showers, 

 he began in the year 1842, and continued to superintend without interruption 

 until quite recently, the simultaneous observations of shooting-stars which ho 

 instituted in the lihenish and neighbouring towns of Germany and Pelgium 

 amongst the best observers and most eminent astronomers of those countries, 

 and which he also collected from observers and astronomers in more distant 

 lands. With the thoughtful care of preserving to posterity the fruits of his 

 long-continued records, he undertook, in the last years of his life, the compi- 

 lation of all the results of his prolonged researches, from the first recorded 

 observation in the year 1833 to the present time ; and his work * " On the He- 

 suits of Forty- three Years' Observations of Shooting-stars" was on the point 

 of publication, and lacked but little final revision from his hands, before his 

 sudden and unexpected death. To the watchful and unwearying labours of 

 Professor Heis, which supported its cultivation during the period of indiffer- 

 ence into which it had fallen after the disappearance of the great November 

 showers of 1832-36, the present high p&sition which the theory and obser- 

 vation of luminous meteors has reached among astronomers as an important 

 addition to the popular branches of their science must be regarded as being 

 greatly due ; and the direction given by his earliest and latest works to the 

 formation and promotion of the new science during its rapid stages of de- 

 velopment will always be accounted by astronomers as one of the foremost of 

 the great achievements by which he won distinguished and honourable titles 

 to their grateful recollection. 



* Now published as vol. ii., 1S77, of the 'Publications of the Royal Observatory 

 of Minister,' under the joint editorship of his daughters and of one of his pupils, 



