The November Meteor -Shoiver at Glasgow. 461 



6° or 8° in length, continued visible four minutes, at first 

 bowing itself, leech-like, and afterwards contracting itself into 

 a globular nebula, which advanced southwards some 10° or 12° 

 as far as a Andromedae, where it disappeared. Its width, and 

 ragged edges prevented any conclusion being drawn in the 

 spectroscope regarding the nature of its spectrum. 



Ten or fifteen meteors might now be counted by one observer 

 in a minute. Flights of three meteors occasionally appeared 

 together, and a powerful flash, like prolonged lightning at no 

 great distance, drew our attention to every part of the horizon, 

 in the vain attempt to see the residue of some large meteor. 



At 12h. 41m. a dazzling object, two or three times as bright 

 as Yenus, passed in a second from midway between the 

 " pointers " to the nose of the Lesser Bear, leaving a bright 

 streak, divided like the last into two parts ; but the first part 

 in this case remained in sight the longest. The end-half 

 afforded a decided spectrum, appearing as a single bright band 

 in the spectroscope, no broader than if looked at through an 

 ordinary piece of glass. It faded rapidly and disappeared, 

 whilst the first half collected itself into a ball, and grew brighter, 

 exactly as a row of gas-lights, seen one behind the other, look 

 brighter than a single flame. In nine minutes it could no 

 longer be traced, as it gradually vanished between the 

 " pointers " at the place where the meteor first began. 



The number of streaks now visible in the sky gave an 

 opportunity for using the spectroscope. "Nov. 14th, 12h. 

 54m. a.m. ; equal to Sirius ; from /3 Oanis Minoris to /3 

 Eridani. Left a streak for five seconds. The streak appeared 

 as an extremely fine line in the spectroscope." 



A more powerful spectroscope was now employed, consist- 

 ing of the central portion, only, of a Herschel-Browning spec- 

 troscope, containing two prisms, and producing, therefore, 

 twice the dispersion of a single prism. My assistant, Mr. 

 Macgregor, looking at the streaks with the unassisted eye, 

 whilst I watched the same streaks in the spectroscope, we each 

 called out "gone/' when the streaks appeared to us to vanish. 



" 12h. 56m. a.m.— Equal to a first magnitude star. Left a 

 greenish blue streak for three to four seconds. We differed 

 in our vanishing moments two-tenths of a second. 



" 12h. 57m. a.m. — Equal to a first magnitude star. Left a 

 greenish blue streak for three to four seconds. We differed in 

 our vanishing moments one-tenth of a second. 



" Ih. 0m. a.m. — Equal to Sirius. Left a greenish blue streak 

 for four seconds. We spoke together/ - ' 



The result shows that some of the streaks were composed 

 of mono-chromatic light, altogether undimmed by its passage 

 through the prisms. 



