156 report — 1877. 



tions ; and at Stranorlar, 230 miles from its terminal point, after glancing, 

 red and globe-like and very brilliant, from behind a clond to the horizon, 

 " suddenly a flame sprang up and all was over " (describing apparently a 

 considerable flash which must have accompanied the terminal disruption). 



From the apparent course at Dublin and Shillelagh the commencement 

 cannot have lain southward of the latter place ; and if " near the pole star," 

 at first, at St. Ann's Head, it must have then had an elevation of not less 

 than 80 miles. With a south-west flight from this point to a height of 20 

 miles at disappearance 40 miles S.W. from Cork, a radiant-point of its real 

 course at 275°, + 50° is obtained. Although this is suspiciously near the 

 radiant-point of the Lyrids of April 20 (at 270°, -f 35°), the course can- 

 not be adjusted to this point without making it very nearly horizontal, a 

 direction of flight which is not at all borne out by the observations ; and 

 there is no reason for supposing that this large detonating meteor (even if, 

 like the Lyrids of the brighter class, it had left a long-enduring light-streak) 

 was connected with the cometary or with any tributary system of the 

 Lyrid meteor-stream. Greg's shower ' Draconids I.,' at 267°, +53°, in 

 March and April, also noted by Schiaparelli on April 1 and 14, is the 

 nearest recognized general meteor-system of which this fine detonating 

 fireball may not improbably have been a member. 



1877, April loth, 10 h 50 m p.m., Yorkshire. — A very luminous fireball ex- 

 hibiting two bright flashes of intense light, descended over the eastern part 

 of Yorkshire, and was visible in many parts of England. Besides the notes 

 of its visible path included in the above fireball-list, the following description 

 of its appearance at Chipstead, Surrey, where its course was well seen, was 

 obligingly communicated to the Committee by Mr. 11. H. Scott. The ob- 

 server, who had seen many meteoric phenomena at sea, had never before 

 witnessed one of such great brilliancy. " The light was so strong, that I 

 could have seen a pin upon the doorstep where 1 stood "; and it cast this il- 

 lumination over the surrounding country. It appeared in the north-west as 

 a bluish-white fireball falling towards the east, and leaving behind it a long 

 train of sparks. The words italicized corroborate the description at Leicester 

 that it descended in the north (from y Cephei) on a course inclining east- 

 wards about 30° from vertical towards the right ; and from the accordant 

 appearance which its course presented in the north at these two places, the 

 same must also have been about the slope or direction in which it "dropped" 

 (probably at the end of its flight) " from Cassiopeia " above the northern 

 horizon at Cambridge. The direction of its explosion within a point of 

 Conister from the junction of Christian lload and Bucks Koad, as seen at 

 Douglas in the Isle of Man, indicates about the neighbourhood of Hull as 

 its locality in the north from Chipstead, Leicester, and Cambridge ; but 

 whether it appeared to descend vertically, or with a horizontal or inclined 

 motion at Douglas was not recorded ; and no intelligible agreement of its 

 apparent course and position as observed at lN T ewcastle-upon-Tync with those 

 described at Douglas and at the southern points of view can be extracted 

 from the note of its appearance there, for further determining the height in 

 miles and the position and direction of the meteor's real course. Its radiant- 

 point may be presumed to have been near 6, t, k Ursee Majoris (20° or 30° 

 west of the zenith), and its real path descending from a height of about 60 

 miles between Leeds and Hull to a height of 30 miles over the sea near the 

 neighbouring coast of Yorkshire, between Flamborough Head and (he Humbcr ; 

 but in the absence of good observations of the meteor from that neighbour- 

 hood, or from more northern points of view, no exact or positive conclusions 



