136 Scientific Intelligence, 
These various documents give some data and explain some relations, 
which heretofore were doubtful and contradictory. 
which requires a motion of the earth 22:8 minutes, until the western 
meridian occupies the place of the eastern. We have no observation 
with regard to the velocity of this fireball, but its height just before its 
fall at Hraschina, as viewed from Szigetvar was between 30° and 35°, 
equal to an altitude of 43 to 52°5 miles. 
Another consideration is very important. The planetary velocity, with 
which the meteorite entered our atmosphere and remained at about the 
same height between Neustadt and Hraschina, was checked a little east 
of the latter place, where the fall suddenly begun. The resistance of the 
air alone could have produced this result, and a gradual preponderance of 
the attraction of the earth would have produced in the path of the meteor 
a far less sharp angle, than that at Hraschina. 
Prof. H. calls attention to another matter of great interest, the vast 
difference between the apparent size of the meteor and its solid contents. 
A body of 15 inches in diameter at a distance of 75 miles is invisible, yet, 
the meteor is pictured as if of the size of the sun. The appearance of the 
chain indicates the time when the solid portions became visible, they 
are undoubtedly however only the paths of the luminous bodies, an 
that they do not form straight lines, is very natural, if we take into con- 
sideration, the flat shape of the meteorite, which, by its rapid passage, 
must have been tossed from one side to the other by the resistance of the 
air. Ifthe rapid compression of the air is sufficient to annul the cosmical 
velocity, it certainly can produce the elimination of light, the fiery phe- 
noména. ese two points established, as a natural consequence © 
same cause, two other phenomena result, which belong to the character of 
meteors. The solid nucleus of a meteor is not a globe, it passes UN- 
doubtedly through the resisting medium, with its centre of gravity fore 
most, producing at the same time on account of the unequal distribution, 
a rotation of its mass, which increases in rapidity, whilst the velocity of 3 
the motion diminishes in a direct ratio. We can readily conceive there 
