li h REPORT 1877. 



a point 87 miles E.N.E. from Yarmouth to 75 miles above a point (>0 miles 

 E.S.E. from Yarmouth, with a real course of 90 miles performed in 2 seconds, 

 as Mr. Denning estimated its duration. The heights at appearance and dis- 

 appearance are somewhat greater than usual ; and the meteor-speed corre- 

 sponding to this radiant-point for a parabolic orbit would be 24-5 miles per 

 second instead of 45 miles per second, the actual velocity with which the 

 meteor appears to have been moving, from this comparison of the correspond- 

 ing observations. 



II. Large Meteors. 



1873, June 17, 8 h 46 m (Breslau mean time) ; Hungary, Austria, and 

 Bohemia. — In July and December 1873, Prof. G. von Niessl of Briinn, in 

 Moravia, and Prof. J. G. Galle of Breslau, in Silesia, respectively published 

 investigations * on the real path of this large detonating fireball, which in 

 the main corroborated each other with wonderful exactness, although the 

 accounts which they employed were principally collected from the west and 

 east sides respectively of the tract of country over which the meteor passed 

 near the termination of its course. One very striking difference, however, 

 was exhibited between the independent results which they obtained. While 

 scarcely three or four miles in the locality (Blernhut or Grosschdnau in 

 Saxony, on the Lausitzer-Gebirg dividing that province from Bohemia), and 

 scarcely half a mile in the height (20| miles above the earth), separates the 

 points of disappearance of the fireball as found by these two computers, while 

 the radiant-point, or direction of the real path along which the meteor ap- 

 proached this place, coincides within about 3° in the results of the two 

 calculations, the meteor was found by Prof, von Niessl to have begun its 

 flight over a point near Chrudim in Bohemia, at a height of 39£ miles, 92 

 miles from its point of disappearance ; while the length of its course, according 

 to Prof. Galle, was 285 miles, and its point of first appearance was far south- 

 eastward from Bohemia, at a height of 101 miles over Raab, in the southern 

 part of Hungary. Some observations in Silesia, especially one at Eybnik, 

 where the meteor appeared at starting to emerge from the planet Saturn, had 

 led Prof. Galle to this result ; and the following comparison (taken from Prof, 

 von Messl's later paper) will show how exaggerated it must have appeared 

 to Prof. Niessl, from all the observations at Briinn, and in Moravia and Bo- 

 hemia, which he had been able to collect : — 



Distance of the point 



observed from the end Height above 



Place of observation. of the Meteor's course, the Earth. 



miles. miles. 



Rybnik 281 92 



Schemnitz 230 78 



Vienna, Koritschan, Schbnberg 124 51 



Briinn, and most other stations. (The first 



point of the streak) 92 41 



Point of the meteor's disappearance (and 



end-point of the streak) 20 



* In the ' Yerhandlungen des naturforschenden Vereins in Briinn,' vol. xii. 1873-74 ; 

 and in the ' Jahresberk'ht der schlesischen Gesellschaft 1'iir vaterlandisehe Cultur,' -\ol. 

 for 1S73-74. Abstracts of these papers by the authors also appeared in the ' Astrono- 

 mische Nachrichten,' Nos. 1955, 1989-90 ; and they were reviewed at some length in the 

 volume of these Eeports for 1874, p. 270 et scq. The present notice is taken from a 

 memoir on the meteor to which it relates, by Prof, von Niessl, excerpted from the above 

 mentioned volume of the Briinn ' Verhandlungen,' for the obliging communication of 

 which the Committee is indebted to the author. 



