THE LOST COMET AND ITS METEOR-TRAIN. 
U7 
rate accords perfectly with the position occupied by the object 
on the second morning. 
Two observations of a comet do not afford the means of 
determining the paths in which the comet is travelling. But 
if we combine Pogson’s observations with some other assump- 
tion, as that the object he saw had crossed the earth’s orbit 
\ on November 27 at a given hour, or that the period of the 
! object is identical with that of Biela’s comet, or the like, then 
an orbit can be determined. 
Now Capt. Tupman, in a paper recently read before the Koyal 
I Astronomical Society, after showing that the meteors seen on 
I I the night of Nov. 27 were running in an orbit sensibly the same 
I as Biela’s comet, proves conclusively that a body moving in the 
same orbit as those meteors, or in an orbit parallel to them, 
I could not have been in the positions occupied by the object 
! seen by Pogson. We must assume greater changes in the 
L character of the orbit than appear admissible, in order to ac- 
I count for the observed positions ; in particular since the 
F object seen by Pogson had an apparent motion nearly parallel 
II to the ecliptic, the inclination of its orbit cannot possibly be 
so great as 12° 34', which is the inclination of Biela’s comet. 
On the other hand. Dr. J. Holetschek, in No. 1920 of the 
‘ Astronomische Nachrichten,’ combining Pogson’s two observa- 
tions, with Hubbard’s values of (1) the longitude of the node, 
(2) the longitude of the perihelion, and (3) the inclination, 
deduces for the perihelion passage of Pogson’s object the date 
; December 23*368 (mean Berlin time) and the perihelion dis- 
' tance *8339 (*8606 being Hubbard’s value of the perihelion 
distance of Biela’s orbit in 1872). It is noteworthy that 
Tupman obtains for the meteor-flights of last November 
and for Biela’s comet the following elements respectively : — 
Meteors of Nov. 27. 
Perihelion passage 1872 Dec. 26*90 
Longitude of perihelion. . 111° 48' 
„ „ ascending mode 245° 57' 
Inclination .... 13° 24' 
Perihelion distance . . *8265 
Eccentricity . . . . *7670 
Motion Direct 
Biela’g Comet. 
1872 Oct. 66-9 (?) 
109° 24' 
245° 54' 
12° 34' 
*8718 
•7600 
Direct 
' So that Holetschek’s result would appear to indicate that the 
; olject seen by Pogson had been travelling about 3J days 
I behind the meteors observed on November 27 last. 
I Professor von Oppolzer of Vienna, the eminent orbit calcu- 
j lator, shows, in the same number of the “ Astronomiche 
j Nachrichten,” that the same problem may be successfully 
j L 2 
