162 report — 1877. 



Piscids (at 15°, +11°, near d, r\, 14 meteors) were the next most active shower, 

 and a rather large proportion (13) of the meteors also came from a point in 

 Cassiopeia, at about 14°, + 50° ; others of the radiant-points detected hy Mr. 

 Denning in October are included in the Table given below (pp. 166, 167), 

 and some of their positions will be referred to again in this Appendix. 



The ' Leonids,' ' Andromedes,' and ' Taurids/ in November 1876. — No 

 marked returns of the periodical meteor-showers of the 14th, 15th, and 27th 

 of November were detected in 1876. A single determination of the radiant- 

 point in Leo was, however, made by Mr. Denning, from five distinct Leonids 

 (three of them small and short near the radiant-point), leaving white streaks 

 for two or three seconds, on the mornings of November 19th and 20th ; 

 constant rainfall interrupted meteor observations almost completely on the 

 ten preceding days, and it is not possible to say if this observation indicated 

 a later recurrence of the Leonids in 1876 than was ever discovered previously 

 among the latterly diminishing evidences of their annual displays. A fine 

 " Leonid-like " meteor, seen by Mr. Backhouse on Nov. 11th (see the fireball 

 list), may not impossibly have belonged to a different meteor-system (in Leo 

 Minor) of which Mr. Denning found, last November, many members leaving 

 streaks, and of great swiftness, abundant in the later days of the month*. 

 Of the ' Andromede ' star-shower of November 27th no recognizable meteor 

 representatives were observed. 



Mr. Denning and Mr. Corder were again successful during the month of 

 November in securing a great number of observed meteor-paths, and in de- 

 ducing from them their radiant-points. Up to this time 1300 meteors (in- 

 cluding Perseids) had been registered by Mr. Denning, and his revised list of 52 

 radiant-points, deduced from 740 ordinary shooting-stars and 560 Perseids, 

 was communicated to the ' Astronomischo Nachrichten ' at the end of October, 

 where it formed an extension of a shorter list of 27 radiant- points commu- 

 nicated in April of the same year to the Royal Astronomical Society, and 

 already included in the ' Monthly Notices ' of the Society for April, 1876 

 (vol. xxxvi. p. 284). During November and following months of the past 

 year Mr. Denning's observations were resumed more often and systematically 

 than before, and were continued chiefly in the morning hours of the night, 

 after moouset, when few observations of shooting- stars had hitherto been 

 collected. The Journal of his observations contained at this time 464 meteor- 

 tracks, recorded since January 1876, and by its comparison with that kept at 

 the Eadcliffe Observatory, Oxford, and with other lists furnished to them by 

 observers during the same time, the Committee was able to trace among 

 these records fifteen or twenty simultaneous observations of ordinary shooting- 

 stars, particulars of whose appearance have been given in a foregoing list 

 (p. 126). The advantago, in frequency, of the meteors observable in the morn- 

 ing hours over their rate of visibility before midnight was soon found by Mr. 

 Denning to be very sensible. Thus in 23 hours of observation (nearly all p.m.) 

 between October 13th and 29th, 1876, 155 meteors were mapped, while 212 

 were registered in 25| hours (both a.m. and p.m.) in November ; of these latter 



* The two meteors simultaneously observed at Stonyhurst and at the Royal Observatory, 

 Greenwich, on the morning of Nov. 15th, 1875 (see the list of shooting-stars doubly ob- 

 served, above, p. 126), one of which appeared stationary, at the latter place, at 158°, +40°, 

 and of which the other had a radiant-point at 154°, +37°, seem both to hare been early 

 representatives of the same shower in Leo Minor, whose radiant-point on Nov. 26-29 Mr. 

 Denning found to be at 155°, +36°.— [On the nights of Nov. 5 and 7, 1875, Mr. Backhouse 

 saw 14 meteors in about an hour of cloudless watch, chiefly directed from the radiant - 

 point R 4 ; and one or two meteors, apparently ' Andromedes,' in 20 minutes' watch on the 

 night of Nov. 28th. (Note omitted from last year's Report.)] 



