86 



THE GREAT METEOR. 



luminous material moved to N.W. at a rate of eighty 

 miles per hour, and appears to have retained approximately 

 the same height of thirty-two miles while it travelled from 

 over a point N. of Alderney Island to over Dartmoor. . . 



" The phenomenon may be aptly described as the meteoric 

 spectacle of a generation. As the nucleus sailed along its 

 nearly horizontal course, its light was far from being even. 

 It gave a series of outbursts, the brighter of which much 

 exceeded the lustre of Venus. This comparison applies 

 to a distance of 100 miles. The mate of a vessel in the 

 Channel near Start Point says the light was astonishing, 

 and broke out with startling vividness, so that anyone could 

 have easily seen to read 



" The nucleus of the meteor as it traversed its course 

 threw off a train of fiery sparks, such as is often seen, 

 but these quickly died away. Then slowly the durable streak 

 or trail came out, intensifying rapidly and stretching across 

 the sky like a silver ribbon very irregularly arranged. By 

 one observer in the Channel it was watched for three 

 hours, until it became faintly blended with the Milky Way 

 in Cepheus and Cygnus. . . . At the termination of 

 the meteor's career it evidently suffered disruption by two 

 violent explosions, the places of which were definitely marked 

 by brilliant condensations at the angles of the bent streaks." 



In a further contribution on the subject of the streak, 

 to Nature the following week, its length as observed at 

 Guernsey at 7.45 o'clock is given as 65°, and Mr. Denning 

 says : " The meteor had a long way still to travel before it 

 could have reached the earth had it continued its course 

 westwards. Could it have withstood disruption and dispersion, it 

 would have fallen into the sea about forty miles south of the 

 Scilly Isles, and this is about 120 miles W. of the point 

 where it appears to have collapsed, and its material to have 

 been deflected southwards." 



On March 18th yet one more contribution from Mr. 

 Denning appeared in Nature as follows : — 



" The observations of this unusual object [the Meteor 

 of February 22] are exceedingly numerous, but some of 

 them are discordant, and occasion doubts as to the exact 

 path which the meteor traversed in our atmosphere. The 

 radiant point being inaccurately defined the direction and 

 height are also to some extent uncertain. Apart from the 

 determination already mentioned in Nature, I have worked 

 out two others, which do not differ very materially except 

 in the elevation at the end. Further descriptions from 



