Astronomy and Meteorology. 449 
Prof. Twining says, “The meteor described by Mr. B. V. Marsh as the 
most brilliant of the display is identified by myself by several coincidences. 
Ist. It was preéminently the most brilliant flight within my time o 
observation. ‘ 
2d. The time at New Haven was a very few minutes before 11} P.M. 
3d. The duration of the train was timed by myself afterward from re- 
collection, and was less than half a minute, and more than a quarter 
The following are my own observations of the meteor’s flight : 
Ist. Its line was traced back critically to the radiant which I find I 
had marked on the star chart of the Society for the diffusion of Useful 
Knowledge at R. A. 45°, N. P. D. 31° 30’. 
2d. The flight was timed carefully and was found 1:2 seconds. This 
may be relied upon as a near approximation, at least. 
3d. The meteor began at a point distant about 64° of are from my 
radiant. It passed within a few degrees of the Dolphin. Its beginning 
was—say a degree—S.W. of a star which probably was ¢ Cygni. I 
did ‘not record the position laterally, that is to say, from E. to W., but 
the above distance remains unaffected by that circumstance. ae 
4th. Estimated by subsequent examinations of the heavens I call its 
length of flight 29°.” 
reason to suppose that it was one of the August group © meteors. 
If the time of flight is 1:2 seconds, the velocity is 27°5 miles a second. 
The resistance of the atmosphere is wholly unknown, and for it no defi- 
‘ x . 
es a tolerable correction 
where the velocity is large. The result is 26°6 miles a second for the 
relative velocity of the meteor. : 
The well established fact that the meteors of August 9-11 move in 
aths which produced backward pass through a small region of the 
eavens, and that this region of emanation remains the same, or nearly 
the same, from year to year, implies: 
Ist. That the individual meteors are cosmical bodies ; 
2d. That they are permanent members of the solar system revolving 
about the sun in edliptic orbits; ; 
3d. That the direction and velocity of the relative motion, and there- 
fore of the absolute motion, of the individual bodies are nearly the same ; 
‘Am. Jour. Scr.—SecoNp SERIES, VoL. XXXII, No. 96.—Nov., 1861. 
57 
