312 report— 1878. 



about one-third of the moon's diameter ; at Silverton, near Exeter, its head 

 had an apparent width of about one-half, and at Versailles, and in Aisne, 

 France, where the fireball was also seen, its apparent width was about 

 one-sixth of the diameter of the full moon. 



1878, July 29th, 9 h Ob™ (or ? 9 h 31 m ) p.m.— Large fireball, near 

 Manchester and Lancaster. Good observations of this meteor's course 

 were fortunately obtained by Mr. R. P. Greg at Styall, 11 or 12 miles 

 south of Manchester, and by Mf. Thomas Kay at MiddletoD, about 5 

 miles nearly due north from Manchester. At the latter place the momen- 

 tary track of fire which the meteor left on its whole course enabled 

 Mr. Kay to fix its line of flight very accurately from an initial point in 

 Lyra to a terminal one in Canes Venatici, just grazing the star rj Ursse 

 Majoris in its path. At Styall, 16 or 17 miles south from Middleton, the 

 meteor's course was directed from the head of Draco, and Lyra, and its 

 terminal part passed through the middle of the square (a, /3, y, o) of 

 Ursa Major, and ended immediately beyond it. These two observations 

 fix the end-point of the meteor's course very exactly, at about 20 miles 

 high above a point near the mouth of the river Ribble, between Preston 

 and Blackpool. Its apparent descent to this point, northwestwards, was 

 almost exactly vertical to both of the Manchester observers. The remaining 

 descriptions of its apparent course concur to show that the real direction 

 of its descent was, in fact, almost truly vertical, but at the same with an 

 inclination, from the south-east, of somewhere about 20° from per- 

 pendicular. Thus at Whitehaven and at Lancaster, both nearly north 

 from its end-point, its nearly vertical descent in the S.S.E. and S.S.W. 

 was from the north-east, and from about 15° east of the zenith, re- 

 spectively, at those places. At Bristol, 150 miles south from its end- 

 point, it fell in the haze of the north horizon almost vertically from the 

 region of Cassiopeia, which is (if the meteor really shot from the direction 

 of Cassiopeia) from about 35° east of the zenith. The point of commence- 

 ment of the Middleton track is itself almost exactly in the zenith of that 

 place, and with the meteor's long apparent course there of over 50°, a 

 less distance than 10° or 20° at starting, from its radiant point, can scarcely 

 be regarded as admissible. A radiant point on the apparent path at Middie- 

 ton retraced 20° south-eastwards from the zenith, is at 300°, + 35°, 

 (R.A. and Decl.), near q Cygni, and to which of the numerously recorded 

 radiant points in Cygnus at the end of July this brilliant fireball's rapidly 

 descending path was really to be ascribed it is scarcely possible now to 

 determine more exactly from the rather scanty observations. The back- 

 ward prolongation of the observed path at Middleton passes, in fact, on 

 each side of this point, nearly parallel to the stars 8, e Cygni (in the 

 swan's right and left wings) ; and it appears uncertain nearer to which 

 of these two wing-stars of the constellation the fireball's apparent radiant 

 point may not impossibly be supposed to have been situated a little more 

 correctly than near the middle point between them. The nearest point of 

 the line to h Cygni is at 290° + 42° ; and a little nearer to the zenith, it 

 passes near tt Lyrse, at 285° + 45°; while among a large number of 

 shooting-stars seen by Mr. Denning on the last two or three nights of 

 July, 1878, a radiant of bright slow moving meteors was observed at 

 284° + 44°. But these two places are only 10° and 6°, respectively, S.S.E. 

 and S. by E. from the zenith, and this agrees imperfectly with some of 

 the descriptions of the meteor's obliquely descending course. Never- 

 theless, it may very fairly be conjectured that this exceedingly brilliant 



