OBSERVATIONS OV LUMINOUS METEORS. 155 



1877, April 6, 9" 26™ p.m. (Greenwich time), Wicklow to Cork Harbour, 

 Ireland. — A detonating fireball passed with great brilliancy south-westwards 

 over the southern part of Ireland, at about it o'clock, P.M. (Irish time), bursting 

 about 40 miles 8.W. from Cork Harbour over the open sea. A number of 

 published and other particular accounts of its appearance were collected to- 

 gether by Mr. Robert J. Lecky in the ' Observatory ' (vol. i. p. 52. May lt>77 I, 

 embracing chiefly a great many points of observation from Cork in the south 

 to Stranorlar in the extreme north of Ireland. Among the most exact 

 accounts were those furnished to him by Mr. R. H. Scott, Director of the 

 Meteorological Office of the Board of Trade, from St. Ann's Head* and 

 Roche's Point, two stations connected with the Meteorological Office, at Mil- 

 ford Haven and in Cork Harbour. The meteor's course was also approxi- 

 mately noted by the stars in Dublin, and at Shillelagh, County Wicklow. 

 It probably commenced its flight 80 or 90 miles over the neighbourhood 

 of the latter place, and proceeded on a south-west course nearly over the 

 mouth of Cork Harbour to a point about 12 miles south of Gaily Head, where 

 it burst with a violent explosion (probably at a height of about 20 miles 

 above the sea) heard in three minutes at Roche's Point, and in about five 

 minutes as estimated by observers in the City of Cork. The report was 

 double and so heavy there, and in Queenstown in the harbour, that the houses 

 were shaken, and the powder-mills at Ballincollig, four miles from Cork, were 

 thought to have exploded. It was heard at Waterford and Limerick, 80 or 

 90 miles from the meteor's point of disappearance. At St. Ann's Head, 150 

 miles from the same point, and about 100 miles from the nearest point of the 

 meteor's course, its light was equal to that of the full moon, and the body of 

 the meteor, three or four times the apparent size of Sirius, was extended be- 

 hind to a length equal to the distance between two stars in Orion's belt. It 

 shone with the intensity of the lime-light at Cork, especially at bursting, and 

 objects six miles off were lighted up brilliantly by the glare ; at Roche's 

 Point the body of the meteor appeared white, tinged outside with blue, 

 and throwing out jets of coloured light. At Clonmel (under the middle or 

 early part of its course) it was a light blue circular body of some appareut 

 width with, first, a body of crimson flame two or three times its width in 

 length, and then a long train of yellow light following it. At Shillelagh 

 (earlier along the track, where the apparent course was " from the east side 

 of Orion's shoulder to the west of Sirius "), it seemed to " break out again 

 and again, lighting up the country with successive flashes." At Dublin it 

 " fell from the direction of a Orionis, bursting in a shower of vivid sparks." 

 Coloured " stars " or fragments are described as falling from it at other sta- 



* It is difficult to reconcile a course beginning " a little west from Polaris " at St. 

 Ann's Head with an observer's view of the meteor between Collon and Drogheda (30 

 miles north from Dublin), " descending slowly (from an altitude of about 50° in the 

 S.S.W.) with a very slight, inclination towards the east" (which substantiates perfectly 

 the recorded paths at Dublin and Shillelagh), without assigning an improbable height to 

 the meteor at its commencement. But though the entire course may have had a some- 

 what more north-west position (laterally shifted about l!l) miles) over the southern part 

 oi' Ireland (as from Portarlington to Cape Clear) than that above assigned to it. yet the 

 slope and the height and direction of the meteor's real path cannot have differed materi- 

 ally from that here described. The length of the path was about 185 miles, and the time 

 of describing it was reckoned at Shillelagh, Thomastown, and Collon, as " three or four," 

 " four to six," and " quite seven or eight seconds." The meteor's velocity with an average 

 of these durations was ol miles per second, and the theoretical velocity, with a parabolic 

 orbit, of a meteor with the above assigned radiant-point is between 21 and 25 miles per 

 ■econd. 



