OBSERVATIONS OF LUMINOUS METEORS. 335 



nised by Sckiaparelli as agreeing almost exactly with the radiant-point of 

 the Perse'id comet, 1862 III, at about 43° + 57° - 5. The second radiant- 

 point agrees with Heis' position, A n of the centre of the Perse'ids 

 at 45° + 52°, and also with the radiant-point of a more recent comet, 



1870 I, on August 12th, at 43° - 5 + 53°. It may perhaps be that these 

 two comets represent two meteor streams which are in simultaneous 

 activity in the Perseus shower, and in his remarks on this accordance 

 (here quoted from his description of the Perse'ids of the present year in 

 'The Observatory,' vol. ii. p. 165) Mr. Denning notices an equally 

 remarkable coincidence, which he regards as offering even more conclusive 

 evidence of the latter comet's connection with the Perseus shower, that the 

 rich and long-enduring shower of the Perse'ids, seen with prolonged inten- 

 sity on the nights of the lOth-llth* (and with many fine meteors on the 

 12th and 13th) of August, 1871, happened a year after that comet's appear- 

 ance, in the same manner that the extraordinary Perse'id shower of Au- 

 gust 10th, 1863, occurred in the year following that in which the comet 

 1862 III made its appearance. The two instances of near concurrence 

 between a comet and a meteor-shower resemble each other very closely, 

 and there appears, indeed, to be no reasonable possibility of rejecting the 

 conclusion that the conspicuous return of the August Perse'ids in the year 



1871 was not a simple maximum of their ordinary stream, but the result 

 of a passing contribution to its swarm of shooting-stars by the passage 

 very near the earth's path of a second meteor-comet, attended by a second 

 zone or multitude of Perse'ids of August 10th-12th, moving in a slightly 

 different companion orbit from that of the first or annually-recurring 

 shower, and of the meteor-comet corresponding to the Perse'ids of August 

 10th. A strict examination of the August radiant-point, hereafter, will be 

 most desirable to decide the question if, like the major stream of Perse'ids 

 between k Persei and B Camelopardi (at 44° + 58°), the fellow-stream at 

 y Persei (43° + 53°) is an annually recurring one, and forms, like the 

 ordinary Perse'ids of August 10th, a closed belt or ring of meteors circu- 

 lating in a continuous stream, or travels in a single, or in detached 

 clusters, round the sun. 



Mr. Corder's view of the Perse'ids, at Writtle ('The Observatory,' 

 vol. ii. p. 160), was, in point of numbers and in the position of the radiant- 

 point, very similar to Mr. Denning's. In four hours, between ll h 30 m and 

 3 h 30 m , 113 meteors (of which ninety-seven were Perse'ids) were seen. 

 The mean horary number (twenty- eight of all meteors, and twenty-four 

 of Perse'ids) was much exceeded during the hour between 2 h 15 m and 

 3 h 15 m a.m., when forty-four meteors were observed. Of the ninety-seven 

 Perse'ids seen, sixty left streaks, and twenty were coloured. One which 

 appeared at 2 h 28 m a.m. must have been much brighter than Venus, in its 

 flash at bursting, as it cast a sensible glare upon a lamplit page. Its 

 streak remained visible in the sky, from 352° + 48° to 341° + 40°, long 



* In the map of the meteor-tracks of this shower, seen near the radiant-point on 

 August 10th and 11th, which is figured at p. 91 of the volume for 1872 of these 

 Reports, 36 of the 135 meteor-paths there drawn (or 27 per cent.) diverge, as Mr. 

 Denning has found, pretty exactly from a radiant-point at 42° + 54°. The remainder 

 of the tracks proceed principally from a radiant region in rather higher declination, 

 belonging perhaps properly to the true Perse'id comet, while the former point denotes 

 the fellow-comet, 1870 I. Of the meteor-paths on the nights of August 12th and 

 13th few were recorded, but of such tracks of them as were noted it would certainly 

 be a very important utilisation to endeavour to define the exact radiant-point in 

 Perseus which they exhibit by a similar projection. 



