170 H. A . Newton— Fireball of January 13th, 1893. 



tainty of the epoch of the flight, since the earth was rotating 

 relative to the plane passing through Ansonia and the track. 



32. Next to the photograph the statements of Mr. Curtis 

 (17) combined with the several statements in 18-25 seem least 

 fitted for fixing one point in the line of the meteor's motion. 

 Mr. Curtis was probably a few hundred feet north of the pho- 

 tographed plane, but he could not have been far from it be- 

 cause by reason of the earth's rotation that plane passed over 

 Mr. Curtis's place between 7 h 30 m and 7 h 35 m . To Mr. Curtis 

 the meteor seemed perfectly stationary. This was probably 

 not strictly true. We can only assume that the apparent 

 motion was to him not very large. The body was moving at 

 an inclination to the vertical, as will be seen, of 40° or 50°, 

 and when it disappeared was not many miles from him. If 

 the real path continued met the ground much to the east of 

 him, the apparent path seen by Mr. Curtis would have gone 

 down towards the horizon to the east-southeast ; if much to the 

 west of him the apparent path would have gone upward nearly 

 vertically, but a little to the south, toward a point south of the 

 zenith. I believe, if the meteor had been directed to a point 

 more than two or three miles either east or west of Mr. Curtis, 

 that he would in the seven seconds, more or less, during which 

 he was watching it have noticed the downward or upward 

 motion of the fireball. I shall assume therefore that the line 

 of the meteor's path met the ground in Lat. 41° 25 /, 5, Long. 

 73° 29'. This point I shall call Clapboard Ridge. 



33. The reports from N. Y. State, are in accord with and 

 confirm in a general way this assumption. 



Mr. Smith (19) sixteen miles N. 23° W. from Clapboard 

 Ridge says that it fell a little east of south. 



Miss Brill (20) twenty-three miles JST. 28° W. from Clap- 

 board Ridge says it fell a little east of south. 



To observers in Newburgh (21) twenty-nine miles N. 77° W. 

 it fell in the east. 



Mr. Mapes (22) forty miles N. 86° W. saw it almost east of 

 him. 



Mr. Stertzer (23) thirty-six miles S. 49° W. says that it 

 broke N.E. of the zenith at a height of 45°. Altitudes in 

 such cases as this are usually overestimated. This observation 

 together with those reported from Rosendale and New York 

 City (24 and 25) so far as they are definite are all fairly well 

 represented by the assumption made. 



34. We have thus established three out of the four condi- 

 tions which the straight-line path of the meteor must satisfy, 

 namely, the line must pass through Clapboard Ridge, and 

 must lie in a plane passing through Clapboard Ridge and 

 Ansonia, which plane is inclined to the vertical of either Clap- 



