340 report— 1878. 



blank plates, and a long and valuable explanation of the various means 

 of mapping, and recording and reducing to their radiant- points (and 

 even to their real paths and distances) the tracks of shooting-stars, and 

 of noting the special appearances of fireballs, when any such are seen, 

 accompanies the plates in a lithographed pamphlet, also drawn up by 

 Carl Schrader. The spherical radius of the maps is 25 cm. or 9'85 in., 

 a little less than the radius, 12 in., to which the six similarly ruled 

 plates of the Useful Knowledge Society's Atlas, (drawn by the late Sir 

 John Lubbock) are constructed. But instead of being only 50 cm. square, 

 so as simply to enclose the sphere in a circumscribing cube (like the 

 maps just mentioned), the plates are 59 cm. square, and reach at the 

 sides to 50°, instead of to 45°, and at the corners to 59°, instead of to 55° 

 from the centre of the map. The cubical projection of the O'Gyalla 

 maps extends accordingly upon each face, to about 5° beyond the edges 

 of the cube ; and meteor-tracks prolonged to the edge of either of its 

 six maps, admit, therefore, of being easily transcribed in part (and these 

 prolonged with a straight ruler) upon the next adjoining map. This 

 kind of projection of the sphere lends itself, therefore, very conveniently 

 to determining radiant-points of shooting-stars, at whatever hour and 

 day of the year, and in whatever geographical latitude of the globe, a 

 sufficient number of their apparent paths may have been observed. 



Besides the large Miinster catalogue of Professor Heis, and Herr von 

 Konkoly's Hungarian catalogue of meteor- tracks, two long lists of 

 shooting-stars, by Professor Dorna, of Turin, recorded at the Royal 

 Italian Observatory of that city, in November, 1867, and August, 1869, 

 (presented to the Committee some years ago by the author) have, 

 in addition, furnished Mr. Denning with some new materials, of which 

 he has availed himself, to deduce additional lists of meteor- showers, 

 partly for the special dates of the major annual star-showers of April, 

 August, and November, and partly in general for the last half of the year. 

 This last list, containing ninety-two radiant-points will, it is hoped, 

 shortly be published. Of the former lists, one at least, that of circum- 

 Lyra radiant-points of April 19th-23rd, was recently described in a brief 

 paper, on 'the April Lyrids [in 1878] and contemporary Meteor-showers,' 

 in the ' Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society,' by Mr. 

 Denning.* Among many thousands of paths (chiefly found for this 

 date in Dr. Weiss's Austrian Meteor-catalogue, 1867-74) Mr. Denning 

 selected about 300, as radiating from centres in Cygnus, Draco, Lyra, 

 Vulpecula, etc., and deduced eighteen radiant- positions from them, three 

 or four, at least, of which may be regarded as exact and well determined, 

 although (from want of proximity, doubtless, to their maximum dates) 

 they are yet very inconsiderable showers. Accompanying the principal 

 shower in Lyra are two very slender ones, near w and /3 Lyra? ; but in the 

 adjoining constellations the principal contemporaneous showers are, 

 first, a well-known shower at o Draconis (the Draconids, GK 64, 

 224,s) ; secondly, a new, exact and certain shower between and »j Cygni 

 (25 4, s), with several other showers in Cygnus, near ip, x, r, \, e, and £ 

 Cygni, to which one, pretty well confirmed from other sources, may be 

 added near s Vulpeculoe. Thirdly, systems near a and j3 Cephei (of 

 fifteen or sixteen meteors each) and a weak shower in the southern part 

 of Lacerta. And lastly, a well-defined shower in Anser (20 j.s) with two 



* Vol. xxsviii. p. :J2G: May, 1S7S. 



