OBSERVATIONS OF LUMINOUS METEORS. 149 



187G, July 8, about 8 h 45™ (Chicago moan time), Indiana and Michigan, 

 IT. S.* — The course of this meteor was nearly from the westernmost point of 

 Lako Erio (beginning at a point 88 miles over Ottohee, Fulton County, Ohio, 

 30 miles west of Toledo on tbat lake) to the southern extremity of Lake 

 Michigan (ending 34 miles above a point about 35 milos from Chicago, and 

 25 miles from Michigan City, over the lake), traversing a distance of 1 4-5 

 miles over the line of junction between Michigan State and those of Ohio 

 and Indiana with sttrprising brilliancy. Of its real speed of motion the 

 observations of the duration of the meteor's flight unfortunately afford no 

 satisfactory determination. The direction of the flight was from 12° S. from 

 E., alt. 21° [or from about the apparent radiant-point 305°, + 7°, near the small 

 star k Aquilse], as deduced, with the other particulars of its real path, from 

 observations made at Bloomington and Paoli in the south, and at several 

 points in the north of Indiana State, as well as at Chicago. At the latter 

 place, " The meteor was a very brilliant one. It lighted up the sky like 

 the glare of the calcium-light, the intensity being several times greater 

 than the light of full moon." It did not seem to burst ; but its matter was 

 apparently exhausted in the latter part of its flight, leaving a luminous train 

 along its track, which remained visible at least 40 minutes. ISTo detonation 

 was heard, and if any stones were precipitated at the end of its flight these 

 would necessarily have fallen into the waters of Lake Michigan. 



A writer from Stratford, Connecticut, informed Prof. Kirkwood that at 

 nearly the same hour as that of this fireball's appearance, he noted a brilliant 

 meteor shoot from the northernmost visiblo star in Camelopardus, about 8° 

 from Polaris, and vanish immediately behind a projecting roof after lighting 

 up the eastern portico from which it was observed. Connecticut being far 

 cast of Lake Erie, this observation is irreconcilable with the course of the 

 above fireball, and it must without doubt be ascribed to a second large meteor 

 appearing almost simultaneously with the first. A largo meteor, very much 

 resembling that one above described, and like it leaving a very persistent 

 light-streak on its course, was seen on the 8th of July, 1856, in Alabama and 

 Mississippi f, and the occurrence of a stonefall in Spain, Prof. Kirkwood 

 remarks, has been recorded on the 8th of July, 181 1 ; but the absence of any 

 statements in the accounts of its appearance that sounds of an explosion were 

 noticed in connexion with the present fireball, makes it doubtful if with all 

 its brilliancy it may properly be regarded as having been an ae'rolitic me- 

 teor, or one projecting any solid residue of its substance from its track. 



1876, December 21, 8 h 43 m p.m. (Bloomington mean time), Kansas to Penn- 



to offer some agreement with the other conditions of the double stonefall. Although it 

 had a high altitude in its descending node, at Meno on October 1, the radiant-point of 

 the comet of a.d. 1264 was in fact 75° below the north horizon of Wisconsin, U.S., when 

 the aerolite fell there, owing to the apse or perihelion of this comet's orbit midway be- 

 tween its two nodal longitudes being at a considerable distance in latitude on the north 

 side of the. ecliptic. Even the comet of a.d. 178, which satisfies the conditions generally 

 more nearly than any other, has its perihelion in north latitude 18°, and its radiant-point 

 at the ascending inward-moving node was, for that reason, about 40° below the visible 

 horizon of Wisconsin when the aerolite fell there, as the position of the horizon precludes 

 the impact upon it of meteorites "ascending" and moving inn-arch in their orbits from 

 without. 



* This account (and other notices below) of bright meteors recently observed in America 

 is contained in a paper " On eight Meteoric Fireballs seen in the United States from July, 

 1876, to February, 1877," read before the American Philosophical Society by Prof. I). Kirk- 

 wood, of Bloomington, Ind., on March 16, 1877, for a copy of which communication the 

 Committee is indebted to the author. 



t ' American Journal of Science,' November, 1856, and January and May, 1857. 



