432 Miscellaneous Intelligence. 



out Germany, even as far as Vienna, 300 miles distant. He received 

 about forty accounts of its appearance, some of them from persons ac- 

 customed to observations upon fireballs and shooting stars. The places 

 of the observers were such as to give excellent data for computing the 

 meteor's path. Few of these bodies have been better observed. 



Prof. Heis concludes that it first appeared at an altitude of 130 Eng- 

 lish statute miles over N. lat. 52" 30', E. long. 11" 55', that is, a few- 

 miles N.E. of Magdeburg. It exploded, breaking into two or three parts, 

 at an altitude of 57 miles, over N. lat. 51° 38', E. long. 12° 10'. The 

 length of path was 88 miles, and the course sharply downwards, ma- 

 king an angle of about 50° with the horizon. It moved about 10° east 



The interval of flight was variously estimated, but most of the obser- 

 vers called it from three to five seconds. Four seconds gives a relative 

 velocity of 22 miles. The diameter of the meteor he estimated at more 

 than 900 feet. 



Its brilliancy, at the distance of 140 miles, equalled that of the full 

 moon. At Vienna it was at first equal to Venus, but increased to three 

 times the brilliancy of that planet. At Berlin, 100 miles distant, the 

 light was considered equal to that of a gaslight. Prof. Ileis hence estimates 

 its intrinsic light as 08,000,000 times that of an ordinary gas flame. 



The first altitude of this body is probably greater than that of any 

 large fireball whose path has been determined with tolerable accuracy. 



V. MISCELLANEOUS SCIEXTIFIC INTELLIGENCE. 

 1. The Thirty-second Meetinff of the British Association for the Ad- 

 vancement of Science. — The British Association met this year at Cam- 

 bridge, on the 1st of October and adjourned after a week's session. This 



as its contents are not particularly interesting to American readers. V\e 

 copy the following abstract of Prof. Willis's address from the Chemical 

 News of Oct, 1 1 :— 



This address was devoted to a statement of the objects of the Association, a 

 history of its proceedings, and a detailed account of the various grants ot 

 money made by it, for the advancement of science, during the thirty years ot 



;his sum, it appeared, had been expenc 

 1 physics; geology and mechanical sci 

 pans eacn; and one part had been given to botany ar 

 appeared that very little had been devoted to the advs 

 only one-eighteenth having been divided amonn- th 

 geography, and statistics ; and we believe it may be a 



^ ^.. .„.. „ , .„e President said, i 



sutficiently accounted for by the nature of the subjects included in it, vsh 



'""'""" "' ... - .gggrch, observations, ! 



f the globe. The principal items of expenditure m 



g„es of the stars, the maintenance of Kew Observatc 



obaervationa to determine the course of the tide wave ia various parts of 



all proportion of this eighteenth has been allotted to the first of tl 



:f„?/fi"5i'^^''?'^^^«^t 



