Meteorites to the Earth's Orbit. 3 



when statements apparently conflict. A judicial temper of 

 mind must be preserved in estimating the meaning of the 

 statements, lest the evidence be twisted to the support of some 

 preconceived notion. Knowing the danger, I have tried to 

 keep my own mind free from bias. 



We need not know the exact day, but we must know the 

 time of day of the stone-fall, else the direction through the air 

 cannot be used. This throws out about one-fifth of the total 

 number of falls named above, — there being no statement of 

 the time of day of the fail attainable. There are left 210 dif- 

 ferent cases available for use. For 94 of these there is no 

 reliable statement of the direction of the motion of the meteor. 

 We know only the day and the hour Even this, however, is 

 of some value, since we know that the meteor must have been 

 moving downward at the place of fall ; that is, from some 

 point of the heavens then above its horizon. For 116 stone- 

 falls the direction of the motion of the meteor is more or less 

 definitely indicated by the statements of observers, or by the 

 statements of those who have inquired into and reported the 

 facts of the falls. 



We may then divide the observed stone-falls into three 

 groups which will be separately considered : (a), 116 falls for 

 which we have statements as to the direction of the path 

 through the air ; (&), 91 falls of which we know the time of 

 day ; (c), 50 or more falls of which the history is too scanty to 

 give the time of day. 



There is frequent occasion to speak of two points on the 

 celestial sphere for which the English language has no good 

 names. These are the point from which a body is moving, 

 and the point to which a body is moving. These two points 

 are opposed to each other, as north is to south, east to west, 

 zenith to nadir. The words quit and goal will be used to de- 

 note these two points. The earth's quit is that point of the 

 ecliptic from which the earth is moving, the earth's goal that 

 point to which the earth is moving ; the one being about 90° 

 ahead of the sun in the ecliptic, the other 90° behind it. A 

 meteor's quit is that point of the heavens from which the 

 meteor is moving ; its goal that point of the heavens to which 

 it is moving. The motion may be that relative to the earth, in 

 which case the point of the celestial sphere from which it is 

 moving is the meteor's relative quit. Thus the relative quit 

 of a meteor when it is entering the air must be above the hori- 

 zon of the place of entrance, inasmuch as the meteor must be 

 moving downward. If a meteoroid's motion be corrected for 

 the earth's motion the direction of its absolute motion about 

 the sun is obtained, and then the two points of the celestial 

 sphere from which and to which the meteoroid is moving are 

 its absolute quit and its absolute goal. 



