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XL VI. Account of a remarkable Meteor, seen December 19, 

 1849. By Professor J. D. Forbes* 



ON the evening of the 19th December 184*9, whilst walking 

 near the southern part of Edinburgh, about fifteen mi- 

 nutes past five, Greenwich time (as I afterwards estimated), 

 I observed a meteor, fully brighter than Venus at her average 

 brilliancy, moving from W. towards N., parallel to the horizon, 

 elevated 15° above it, and followed by a distinct luminous 

 train. This angle was subsequently taken by estimation by 

 daylight, with the aid of a theodolite; and the compass-bear- 

 ing of the meteor, when first seen, ascertained in the same 

 way, must have been 47° W. of N. When it bore 29° E. of 

 magnetic north, it was observed to have divided into two, the 

 one part following the other at some distance; and I soon 

 after lost sight of it in the obscurity of the smoke of the town. 

 When it split, its altitude was estimated at 6°. It thus de- 

 scribed an arc of no less than 76°, in doing which it occu- 

 pied, as I roughly estimated, about fifteen seconds, or possibly 

 more. 



Having sent a short notice of the appearance of the meteor 

 to the Courant newspaper, I received from many quarters 

 accounts of its having been. seen under circumstances remark- 

 ably similar to those just described. I believe that nearly 

 forty communications on the subject have reached me from 

 places included between Longford, in the centre of Ireland, to 

 near Bervie in Kincardineshire, a distance of above 300 miles, 

 in a direction nearly N.E. and S.W. ; whilst in a perpendi- 

 cular direction, or from N.W. to S.E., the range of observa- 

 tion has been comparatively small ; for I have received no 

 information from beyond Renfrew in the one direction, and 

 Durham in the other, being about 140 miles distant in a 

 straight line. The meteor was seen at Longford, in Ireland, 

 74 miles west of Dublin, but not in Dublin itself. It was 

 seen at Belfast, between Carlisle and Gretna at Stewarton in 

 Ayrshire, at Johnstone, at Paisley, Renfrew, and by many 

 persons in Glasgow and the neighbourhood. It was also 

 generally seen in Edinburgh, in East Lothian, near Melrose, 

 and at Durham, as already mentioned. Further north, I have 

 received accounts from Crail, St. Andrews, Dundee, Perth, 

 and Johnshaven to the north of Montrose. 



The greater number of these communications concur in 

 estimating the direction of the motion of the meteor to have 

 been from S.W. to N.E*, although, as might be expected, 



* From the Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, vol. ii. 

 No. 39. 



