OBSERVATIONS OF LUMINOUS METEORS. 



173 



as will be noticed in the comparative Tables at the end of this Appendix 

 containing his deductions from the Italian and Austrian observations. No 

 other observations of the Lyrids of the 18th-21st of April last were re- 

 ceived by the Committee in the present year. 



The Perseids of August, 1877.— The Committee is indebted to Mr. Denning 

 and to Mr. Wood for the following abstracts of the rates of frequency and 

 of the time of maximum of this shower on the night of August 10th. The 

 nights of the 9th and 11th were overcast at Bristol, and a cloudy state of the 

 sky was so prevalent during the period of the shower in other parts of Eng- 

 land, that equally systematic observations of the intensity of the shower else- 

 where have not yet been received. 



9 30 to 14 30 



285 



69 



354 



Seen by one observer looking uninterruptedly towards Cassiopeia. 



At 12" 89», 9 meteors seen in one minute. 1 Eadiant ^ 430+530 most accurate an(1 

 At 1':-. 15 6 meteors seen in half a minute. > exa( .t 



Observer, W. F. Denning. 



Maximum between 14" and 14" 30 m . 



Meteors brighter and more numerous on the 10th than on the 11th. 

 General appearance of the shower below the average of its intensity in 

 brightness. — Observer, W. H. Wood. 



For the whole interval of Mr. Denning's observations since the publication 

 of his last list of 52 radiant-points (see this Appendix, p. 176) at the end of 

 October, 1876, until June 1877, about 800 shooting-stars were observed, and 

 were reduced to the radiant-points of which the two Tables (Mr. Greg's 

 comparative Tables I., II.) at the end of this Appendix contain the positions 

 compared with the results at the same time obtained by Mr. Corder's obser- 

 vations. These Tables exhibit the places and durations of 83 meteor-showers, 

 of which some twelve are new, and cannot be fairly included in any of the 

 known groups of meteor-showers contained in Mr. Greg's earlier general 

 Catalogues. The two following tables (Tables III. and IV.) contain similar 

 epochs and positions of 105 radiant-points deduced from projections of about 

 1S00 meteors in the Catalogue of shooting-stars observed by the Italian 

 Luminous-Meteor Association in the year 1872, and about 16 or 18 of theso 

 showers appear to be distinct from any that have been previously recorded. 

 Among the ten or twelve showers found in Captain Tupman's unreduced 



