146 report— 1877. 



stream to which it appears that we must have recourse in order to explain, 

 with Professors Galle and von Niessl, the somewhat sensible excess of speed 

 above that in a parabolic orbit with which this great detonating meteor of 

 June 17, 1873, pursued its long and, it appears, very rapid flight over central 

 Europe. 



1874, April 10, 7 h 57 m p.m. (Prague mean time), Bohemia*. — Several de- 

 scriptions of the appearance of this detonating meteor were published in 

 Bohemian newspapers, in Heis"s ' Wochenschrift fur Astronomie,' and in the 

 Proceedings of the Austrian Meteorological Society, while it was well observed 

 at Briinn ; and some private communications from other points, especially the 

 Royal Observatory at Prague, and a place near Kuttenberg, in Bohemia, near 

 which the final explosion took place, were received by Prof, von Niessl. It 

 strongly illuminated for two or three seconds the towns of Prague and Briinn, 

 and its flash resembled that of lightning in some of the towns of Silesia. At 

 Leipzig its apparent brightness was about that of the planet Venus ; but in 

 the immediate neighbourhood of its fall, where it burst nearly overhead, its 

 glare was like sunlight, and its terrifying flash was followed in about a minute 

 by a hollow peal of thunder, the echoes of which were endlessly reverberated 

 for nearly the space of a minute more. This was at Kuttenberg, where its 

 path among the stars was noted. Combined with the observations at Briinn 

 the point of extinction is found from this account to have been not far south- 

 westwards from Kuttenberg, 18J miles high over the village Majelovic, in 

 Bohemia. A good position of the radiant-point is afforded by six astrono- 

 mically described tracks, at 26°, -f 62°, close to the star e Cassiopeiae, which 

 was then 33° above the N.W. by W. horizon. The point of first appearance 

 lay 52 miles along this course from the termination, at a height of 45 miles, 

 unless some imperfect indications of a greater initial height and length of 

 path than this can be trusted for its prolongation to an earlier point. The 

 average duration of this portion of its visible flight gives a velocity of 14 

 miles per second, while the velocity corresponding to a parabolic orbit with 

 the observed radiant-point is about 14-5 miles per second. Prof, von Niessl 

 is not, however, satisfied with this appearance of agreement, as some of the 

 observations of position render a rather greater length of path than that just 

 assigned for the average observed duration somewhat probable ; and he has 

 calculated a hyperbolic orbit of this detonating meteor, at the same time re- 

 peating his formerly expressed conviction that aerolites and detonating meteors 

 will be found to differ from ordinary periodic star showers and from the 

 great majority of comets by native velocities of motion in space carrying 

 them with independent speeds from the region of some distant star spheres 

 into the neighbourhood and the attraction of the solar system. 



1876, April 9, 8 h 20 m (Vienna and Briinn mean time), Hungary and 

 Galiciaf- — The scene of this meteor's explosion was the neighbourhood of 

 Rosenau, Eperies, and Iglo on the Hungarian flank of the Carpathian Moun- 

 tains, which witnessed the descent of the great meteorite of Knyahinya (June 

 9, 1866) ; and at Eperies the extinction of this fireball is said to have been 



* Accounts of the meteor and investigation of its real course. A memoir in the ' Ver- 

 handlungen des naturforschenden Vereins in Brimn, ' vol. xiii. p. 81, by Prof. G. von 

 Niessl (received from the author). 



t " Contributions to the Cosmical Theory of Meteorites," by Prof. G-. von Niessl, of 

 Briinn (' Sitzungsbericbte der k.-k. Akademie der Wissensehaften in Wien,' vol. Ixxv. 

 part 2, April 19, 1877), containing a description of the fireball of April 9, 1877, and an 

 investigation of its real path, together with some general directions for observing luminous 

 meteors (recsived from the author). 



