OBSERVATIONS OF LUMINOUS METEORS. 325 



313° + 48°), but the comet's passage through, its descending node was at 

 such a distance (0 - 285 of the sun's distance from the earth) within the 

 earth's orbit that the possibility of this meteor shower and the comet 

 having any real connection with each other is extremely doubtful. Marked 

 showers east of Perseus were noticed in Camelopardus, Perseus, and 

 Aries during the morning watches of the Perse'ids on August 10th and 

 12th (11th and 13th, a.m.), 1877, of which Mr. Denning has since obtained 

 by observations, and by extensive reductions of other observers' meteor- 

 catalogues, very excellent and abundant corroborative indications. Among 

 the showers noted in the second week of September, were two active radiants 

 — one near t, Persei, and one in Ursa Minor, — accompanying the former 

 of which, some traces, apparently of the October Aurigids, nearo Auriga?, 

 were visible, with a maximum on September 5th. On the mornings of 

 September 15th and 16th, shooting-stars were very numerous, and 

 Mr. Denning noted several meteor showers with apparently new radiant- 

 point positions * from the paths of 117 meteors recorded in nine hours. 



A somewhat extraordinary apparition of a meteor shower in September 

 last, described as related to him by an observer at Bloomington, Inda., 

 by Professor D. Kirkwood in the ' Scientific American,' (transcribed in 

 the 'London Iron Trade Exchange' of October 6th, 1877), was as 

 follows : " A few minutes after 10 o'clock on Friday evening, September 

 7th, 1877, Mr. John Graham, of Bloomington, Inda., had his attention 

 arrested by a sudden light in the heavens, and on looking up he saw a 

 stationary meteor between Aquila and Anser et Vuljpecula, about R. A. 295°, 

 decl. 15° N. It increased in brightness for a second or more, and dis- 

 appeared within less than \° east of the point at which it was first seen. 

 Immediately after the extinction of the first, three others, separated by 

 intervals of three or four seconds, appeared and vanished in the same 

 place, with the exception that one disappeared about as much west of 

 the radiant as the first did east of it. Mr. Graham's curiosity was 

 excited, and he continued to watch until after an interval of a few min- 

 utes a fifth meteor corresponding in appearance to the preceding was seen 

 in the same place. The meteors were about equal to stars of the first 

 magnitude. The fact indicates that a stream of meteoric matter was 

 moving at the time almost exactly towards the observer. Two or three 

 isolated cases of stationary meteors have been recorded ; the phenomena 

 of the 7th inst. are, however, quite extraordinary. I have stated the 

 observations as given me by Mr. Graham, who pointed out the position 

 in which the meteors were seen." On the disappearance of streak-leav- 

 ing meteors, when seen perfectly stationary, it not unfrequently happens 

 that the rekindling of the streak, which is a singular property of the 

 luminous vapours left on a meteor's track (see the last vol. of these 

 Reports, p. 169, for similar examples), presents the appearance of a second 

 meteor shining forth, a second or two later than the first oneat the same place. 

 In the case of extremely large meteors, whirls and contortions of the 

 vapours on its track may perhaps concentrate their light into several 

 such rekindling centres, since the observer's line of sight is at the same 

 time directed along scores of miles of their very feebly phosphorescent 



* A list of these new a.m. showers given by Mr. Denning in ' The Observatory,' 

 vol. ii. p. 164 (Sept., 1878), is as follows : At 156° + 41°, 130° + 46°, 101° + 11°, 

 88° + 17°, 87° + 34°, and 73° + 14°. They are nearly all showers (D. 90, 110, 99, 

 89, 95, 102) seen also in October. 



