OBSERVATIONS OF LUMINOUS METEORS. 89 



Walden can be regarded as carefully observed. 1 Bat the statement at 

 Bury St. Edmonds, 15 miles due east of Newmarket, that the meteor 

 1 was seen in the west moving slowly downwards like a ball of fire falling 

 to the earth,' while it cannot be strictly interpreted as a vertical descent, 

 since the meteor reached that neighbourhood from vertically over Brent- 

 wood, in the south, yet points to Newmarket, 15 miles due west of Bury, 

 as about the extreme point which the meteor perhaps reached, northwards, 

 in its descending route. It ' passed overhead ' at Brentwood, ' from S.S.W. 

 to N.N.E.,' a place of observation which is about 40 miles due south from 

 Newmarket, and 20 miles E.N.E. from London ; and at Godalming, 30 

 miles S.W. from London, it lighted the interior of a room facing south so 

 strongly, that a real path of the meteor towards Newmarket passing nearly 

 over or but little east of London, and descending with a sensible inclina- 

 tion, appears necessary to satisfy these several observations, and it accounts 

 perfectly for the description given of its course at Bury, that it appeared 

 ' descending slowly like a fireball falling to the earth.' The line of flight in 

 this course probably extended from about 75 miles over the neighbourhood 

 of Redhill to five miles over a point two or three miles south or east from 

 Newmarket, passing over Greenwich, and at a height of 40 miles over a 

 point 10 miles west from Brentwood. Its slope is from alt. 45°, 20° W. 

 from south ; and its length (for which no exact limits can be stated) was 

 about 110 miles. It yet seems possible that the Bury and Brentwood 

 observations may be satisfied by a rather lower line of flight than this, if 

 the disappearance was only five or six miles high five or six miles north of 

 Haverhill, which is not at all impossible. With such small admissible 

 adjustments of the end-point, a great variety of initial points and of slopes 

 and directions of the real course might be selected which would not at all 

 conflict with the exceedingly distinct but yet not accurate and precise 

 descriptions of the apparent track at Bury and at Brentwood. Heights 

 of 50-75 miles at commencement over any point between Godstone or 

 Reigate and Dorking or Guildford in Surrey, combined with a proper 

 end-point, would thus answer the imposed conditions, presenting various 

 slopes of path from altitudes of 35°-45°, and from directions between 15° 

 and 30° W. of south. These paths pass at heights of 30 to 40 miles over 

 points not more than 10-15 miles west from Brentwood, and might all 

 there be perfectly described as passing ' overhead.' They would all 

 occupy the south-western sky at Bury, ending due west, or but little south 

 of west, and might there be described as ' in the west ; ' and lastly, their 

 apparent slope in the sky, towards disappearance, would never be less 

 than 45° or 50°, so as to admit fairly of the description there, that the 

 meteor appeared ' falling towards the earth.' That the meteor's slope of 

 path was much greater than 45° appears scarcely probable, as the long 

 extent and duration of the full splendour of its flight, generally attested 

 by the observations, would not be very easily accounted for by a real path 

 whose slope was much greater than this, or whose grade at the utmost 

 materially exceeded 50°. The limits above adopted as extreme possible 

 positions of the radiant-point were at the time of the meteor's appearance 

 between the head of Hydra and Sextans at R.A. 135° to 145°, and N. decl. 

 0° to 10°, immediately adjoining the equator, between those constellations, 



1 The interval noted by a policeman at Saffron Walden was ' 20 seconds, or the 

 same as the duration of the meteor's light. ' At Haverhill, an observer states, < I should 

 think that the meteor lasted five seconds or more ; and half a minute or three quarters 

 of a minute after there was a sound like thunder.' 



