OBSERVATIONS OF LUMINOUS METEORS. 39 



petuation in the table as calculated by Mr. Sylvester was due to an 

 arithmetical oversight on his part. 



The detection of this grave error is due to the fortunate oircum- 

 stance of the co-operation of Dr. Franklin, whose skill, fidelity, and 

 accuracy as a computer it is impossible to praise too highly. 



His time being now again available for undertaking this kind of 

 work, for which he possesses unrivalled aptitude, the Committee request 

 a renewal of the grant of bOl. for carrying it on. 



Report of Observations of Lumi'iious Meteors during the year 

 1879-80, by a Committee consisting of James Glaisher, F.R.S.y 

 &c., E. J. Lowe, F.R.S., &c., Professor E. S. Ball, F.R.S., &c.. 

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

 and Professor A. S. Herschel, M.A., F.R.A.S. 



Twenty annual reports having been already presented by this Committee- 

 since its first appointment in the year 185i», it is proposed in this, its 

 twenty-first report, to review the result of the records and researches upon 

 which (independently of the twelve preceding annual reports presented 

 by Professor Baden-Powell) the Committee has during that long period 

 been engaged. 



In a treatise on ' Atmospheric Phenomena,' published by Mr. B. J, 

 Lowe (one of the present, as well as an original member of this Com- 

 mittee,) in the year 1846, a copious collection of accounts of halos, 

 auroras, and other unusual meteorological appearances, omitting, however, 

 notes of fireballs and shooting stars, served, for the first time probably to 

 many English readers, an important purpose in separating entirely the' 

 latter class of phenomena from those equally conspicuous and notable 

 appearances which are of a purely meteorological origin and signification. 

 The example of orderly arrangement of such descriptions which this work 

 supplied was followed up and soon afterwards supplemented by the records 

 of ordinary and extraordinary observations of luminous meteors begun by 

 Professor Baden-Powell in the year 1855, and continued in subsequent 

 annual reports of the Bx'itish Association until the present time. 



Immensely as the theory of meteor-systems has progressed during the 

 long season of attention which has thus been directly bestowed upon them, 

 the apparitions of fireballs and falling stai'sare still as striking and remark- 

 able phenomena as they used formerly to be, and in some important respects 

 also they remain just as truly problematical ' exhalations of the skies ' as 

 they were in former days. For although they are now known to be as- 

 tronomical bodies, instead of objects depending on the winds and other 

 uncertain meteorological conditions for their vai'ious aspects and produc- 

 tion, yet no astronomical theoiy has yet been discovered or constructed 

 sufiiciently far-reaching and adapted to account at the same time satis- 

 factorily both for the well-known occui'rences of meteor-showers, and also 

 for sporadic meteors, including the rarer phenomena of fireballs and 

 aerolites. 



References and allusions are abundantly made in the later years of 

 these Reports both to the well-known discovery of tie clustering together 



