OBSERVATIONS OF LUMINOUS METEOBS. 305 



seems to have been obtained (and where the meteor is also said to have 

 descended from the direction of Ursa major), the nncleus or head is said 

 to have been pear-shaped ending in a long tail of light ; three or fonr 

 times as bright as Jupiter, and bright white, changing to pale red as it 

 approached the horizon. It moved slowly, and halted apparently for a 

 moment in its course as it passed between Sirius and Orion's belt. 



At Leicester, towards the close of its course, the width of the fireball's 

 disc was about half the moon's diameter, and it was so radiant as to cast 

 shadows like the moon. It left no streak, but it had a short tail, and in 

 colour it seemed yellow or orange. Three minutes after its disappear- 

 ance [the time taken by sound to travel about 36 miles] a rumbling 

 sound like distant thunder was heard proceeding from its direction. 

 The motion of the nucleus in the last part of its flight seemed to be 

 slightly zigzag. 



The distance of the observed end point of the meteor's course from 

 Leicester is 31 miles ; and a point 10 or 12 miles before the end point, 

 along the meteor's course, is 36 miles from Leicester, so that sounds pro- 

 duced by the explosion, and by resistance to the motion of the fireball in 

 the last ten or twenty miles of its course, appear to have been those heard 

 at Leicester, like the rumbling sound of distant thunder. At Birming- 

 ham no sound of the explosion was perceived, although the distance of 

 the end point of the meteor's flight was only twenty miles from the 

 observer there ; but the circumstance that the track was directed 

 nearly towards him, may have been less favourable than its flank 

 presentation towards Leicester for conveying to that distance the rumbling 

 sound of its passage through the air ; and as it does not seem to have 

 been a loud sound at Leicester, it may also be owing to its slightness that 

 the report of a terminal explosion, which may really have taken place 

 at the end of the meteor's course, was not noticed by the Birmingham 

 observer. 



1878, May 12, 8 h 53 m p.m.— A. detonating fireball (?) ; Yorkshire to 

 near Edinburgh. — This fine (and perhaps detonating ?) fireball made its 

 closest approach to the earth in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh ; and 

 accounts of its appearance there, and at places not far from Edinburgh, 

 published in the ' Scotsman ' of May 15 and 16, and in ' Nature,' of May 

 23, by observers of its course, give very graphic descriptions of the 

 brilliant spectacle which it presented. Accounts at Wigton, in the 

 south-west part of Scotland, at Derby, in London, and at Calne, in Wilt- 

 shire, were furnished also in the ' Scotsman ' of May 20, the ' Derbyshire 

 Advertiser and Journal ' of May 17, ' Nature,' and the ' Times ' of May 

 16 ; further observations of its path of special accuracy being also sup- 

 plied from several towns in Yorkshire, in an article by Mr. J. E. Clark 

 on the real path of the meteor, in the ' Natural History Journal of Societies 

 in Friends' Schools ' of July, 1878, in which he discussed all the observa- 

 tions of it in England of which he had received information. One of 

 the best of these was by Mr. W. T. Jackson, at York, who, with a party of 

 friends sitting in a gaslit room, saw the meteor descending, in a north- 

 west direction, through window panes, with a direction of fall towards 

 the earth, which was absolutely vertical. There was still much light in 

 the sky, and stars were only dimly visible, but Capella was observed near 

 the meteor's course, about 9° or 10° on its left, as was accurately ascer- 

 tained by measurement. Rough sketches of the stars, showing the 

 meteor's track among them, were also furnished to Mr. Clark by observers 



1878. x 



