76 eepoet— 1879. 



Report of Observations of Luminous Meteors during the year 

 1878-79, by a Committee consisting of James Glaisher, F.R.S., 

 &c., E. P. Greg, F.G.S., F.R.A.S., C. Brooke, F.R.S., Professor G. 

 Forbes, F.R.S.E., Walter Flight, D.Sc., F.G.S., and Professor 

 A. S. Herschel, M.A., F.R.A.S. (Reporter). 



The Committee regrets to record the loss during the past year, by Mr. 

 Greg's retirement from active work with the Committee and by Mr. 

 Brooke's death, of two most active supporters among its members. By 

 adding to its list the names of two observers, Mr. B. J. Lowe and 

 Professor R. S. Ball, who have distinguished themselves very greatly by 

 their contributions to this branch of astronomy, and who have consented 

 to take part in the Committee's further operations, it is hoped to repair 

 the present loss of excellent counsel and assistance which the limited 

 numbers of the Committee have unexpectedly sustained. 



From the loss of Mr. Greg's assistance, and also to limit the extent 

 of this year's Report to an ordinary and reasonable length, it has been 

 resolved to defer for discussion until a later Report the particulars of 

 observations of meteor showers, annual and occasional, which have 

 been received during the past year, and the papers and discourses on the 

 connections of cometary with meteor-hypotheses that have been published 

 and circulated during the same time. The expected return of Biela's comet 

 to its perihelion in the present year, leading a shower of shooting-stars to be 

 looked for on November 27 next, with much confidence among astro- 

 nomers, will afford an occasion next year to return to this subject and to 

 review together the parallel results obtained in the two successive years 

 of observations on meteor showers of ordinary and extraordinary oc- 

 currence ; of the Andromedes in November last, however, nothing was 

 visible, and very unfavourable weather has generally caused only very 

 meagre views of the annual star showers of October, December, January, 

 and April last (and also of the major showers of August in this year and 

 last) from being seen. 



The main Appendices of this Report, following a table of occurrences 

 of occasional phenomena of fireballs, review the discussions by different 

 authors of a great number of doubly observed fireballs recorded for a few 

 years past, describing the results and the views regarding them to which 

 the authors have been led by their reductions. Of these fireballs con- 

 spicuous detonating ones occurred in the United States on August 11 

 and December 30, 1878, and on January 28 (a.m.), 1879 ; in Bohemia and 

 Saxony on January 12, 1879 ; and in England on February 22 and 24 

 (a.m.), 1879, the real paths of all of which have, to a greater or less 

 degree of certainty and closeness, been approximately ascertained. 



The pages of a few lists of meteor shower observations and reductions 

 furnished by Mr. Greg and Mr. Denning are also given in an Appendix. 

 The rest of the Report consists of the review of recent aerolitic oc- 

 currences and investigations by Dr. W. Flight. The falls of two aerolites 

 during the past twelve or fifteen months are described in this review ; at 

 Tieschitz, Moravia, on July 15, 1878 (a single stone), and at Esterville, 

 Iowa, U.S., on May 10, 1879. The last of these stonefalls was 

 of unexampled magnitude, one stone which fell weighing 500 lbs., 

 and the other fragments which have been found, together amounting also 



