310 REPORT — 1878. 



aboat 45° or 50° E. of S. (R. A. about 250° or 255°) from which it was 

 directed. Its very slow and long protracted flight, and the form and 

 colonr of its nucleus, resembled those of the later meteor, and its 

 observed course, presumably horizontal, appears pretty certainly to have 

 been directed from the same radiant-point. It did not emit sparks nor 

 oscillate in its progress as the later and larger meteor seemed to do. 

 Captain Cunninghame, at Batbwick, also saw both meteors, the second 

 larger than the first, but resembling it otherwise in the characters of its 

 appearance. Mr. G. H. Holmes describes the first as singularly splendid 

 even in the nearly full daylight which prevailed. It was pale green, like 

 a globe of liquid fire sailing through the sky (Bristol newspaper accounts, 

 communicated by Mr. Denning). 



The next fireball, at 9 h 53 m p.m. was very widely noted in the south 

 of England. Mr. Denning's view of it at Bristol, however, supplies the 

 only precise data upon which calculations of its real path can be founded. 

 Observers at four places in Kent, and in the neighbourhood of London, 

 assign various heights at which it passed almost horizontally below, while 

 at Bristol it passed 6° above, the moon. At Silverton, near Exeter, it shot 

 towards Ursa Major (a little west of the zenith), and disappeared a little 

 beyond that constellation, and in Jersey it was seen to commence about 

 30° from the zenith, in the north, and fall towards the horizon. A common 

 plane perspective projection of all these apparent paths on a single map of 

 the sky at the time of the meteor's appearance shows that its path was 

 very little inclined to the earth's surface, and suffices to fix its real place 

 and altitude with fairly satisfactory exactness. 



The fireball began its course at a height of about 65 miles over a point 

 in the English Channel, near the Channel Islands, about 20 miles W.N.W. 

 from Guernsey, passed nearly over Start Point and the main land to 

 Bideford Bay, descending gradually to a height of about 37 miles over a 

 point in the Bristol Channel, 12 or 15 miles E.N.E. of Lundy Island, 

 where it disappeared. The length of this course is about 160 miles, de- 

 scending with a slope or inclination to the earth's surface of about 9° or 

 10° from the direction of about 23° E. of S. The radiant point was at 

 R.A. 247° decl. — 25°, within three or four degrees. From a description 

 of the duration of the flight at Hawkhurst, where it was well observed, 

 it may be reckoned not to have exceeded eight or nine seconds, although 

 durations varying from three or four to twenty or thirty seconds are else- 

 where assigned to the time occupied in its long course, with its slow 

 majestic speed. The real velocity of its motion given by this estimation 

 is about 19 miles per second ; while that of a meteoric body revolving 

 round the sun in a parabolic orbit, and having the same radiant point, 

 would be 20 miles per second. The meteor did not burst, but threw off 

 some sparks, and had a short waving tail, with a slightly oscillating 

 motion, or flickering changes of brightness as it sailed along. It disappeared 

 suddenly, without leaving any streak, or producing an audible explosion. 

 Its radiant point closely resembles in position that of the great detonating 

 or aerolitic meteor of June 17th, 1873 (see these Reports, Vol. for 1878, 

 p. 145), seen in Austria and Bohemia, which was found, by Dr. Galle and 

 Prof, von Niessl, to be at R.A. 248°, decl. -20°; and it is, like that of 

 several large meteors which have occasionally been noted in June and 

 July, in the neighbourhood of the ecliptic, and of the bright star Antares 

 (a Scorpii, at 245°-5— 26°"0). 



The adopted radiant point of this fireball, at 247°— 25°, is on the back- 



