270 eepokt— 1878. 



The " Taurids I." are apparently small aerolites ; and it may be added that 

 the comet of 1702, whose fragments, if they strike the earth at all, must 

 do so from a radiant point at about 56° + 20° on the 27th of November, 

 appears to be so closely associated with the new-found maximum of the 

 " Taui'ids I." on November 20th, that if the aerolitic character of that 

 meteor shower is certainly established, a fair presumption then suggests 

 itself that the material of the comet itself is a firm and solid substance, 

 and that the " Taurid " shooting stars, and even detonating fireballs which 

 sometimes accompany them, are but small fragments compared with 

 much larger stony masses which may be pictured as congregated to- 

 gether in the nucleus of the comet ! 



Besides the many scattered accounts, and the general review of their 

 contents given, with an engraving, by Captain Tupman, in his first Paper, 

 a full and varied collection of descriptions of the meteor's appearance by 

 different observers was published in ' Nature' (vol. xvii., pp. 94 and 113). 

 Particulars of these various descriptions, including some original accounts, 

 will be found in the list of observations of large meteors accompanying 

 this Appendix ; and the real height and description of its course, from 96 

 miles above the neighbourhood of Derby to a point 14 miles above the 

 Irish Channel, about 20 miles north of the Welsh coast near Llandudno, are 

 detailed at length in the list of such determinations (pp. 266-7) of several 

 large meteors during the past year which is here appended. The meteor's 

 apparent path was noted pretty exactly at ten, and less perfectly at five 

 or six other places in England and Wales, Scotland and Ireland, by the 

 stars or planets ; by estimated bearings and altitudes at some twenty-five 

 places, and by exact measurements of the same data at four or five. From 

 two observations of the latter kind by Mr. T. S. Petty, at Llandudno, 

 and by Captain Watson on board of the Algeria, in the Irish Channel, 

 very near the meteor's place of disappearance, Captain Tupman regards 

 the final height as having been only 14, instead of 26 miles, and the 

 radiant-point at 62° + 21° instead of at 63° + 15°, which were the first 

 deductions of its real course arrived at from the other observations. 

 Whatever discrepancies in the end-height and radiant-point are thus 

 exhibited, the adopted corrections thus finally introduced appear to be 

 absolutely necessary ones to satisfy some of the nearest well-observed 

 positions, and especially the two last-named very important observations. 

 Of the two explosions, or first outburst and final disruption, between 

 which the meteor was a most vivid bluish pear-shaped fireball, with a 

 long tail of red stars or sparks following it, the first took place at a height 

 of about 40 miles exactly over Liverpool, and in a considerable part of its 

 track before this point the meteor was described as resembling an ordinary 

 shooting-star. It left no long persistent streak, and burst at last into a 

 shower of highly-colom*ed fragments with an explosion, the report of 

 which was loudly heard in two or three minutes like artillery and thunder 

 on the Lancashire and Welsh coasts, and in the Isle of Man. 



The following is the calculation by Captain Tupman of the real course 

 of the bright fireball which he observed on the evening of November 27th, 

 1877 :— 



A Meteor of Short Periodic Time. By Captain G. L. Tupman. 



On the 27th of November, 1877, at 10 h 26 m G.M.T. precisely, the 

 sky being clear, I observed a fine fireball, of normal type, descend from 



