58 
vations, would seem to indicate not only that there was no 
very material increase in the average number of meteors per 
minute as the morning advanced, but also that the display 
was already on the decline before daylight put an end to 
observation. At the same time it is to be noticed that, 
according to the observations of M. Coulvier-Gravier, meteors 
in more than average numbers, indeed very considerably so, 
were to be seen on the night of the 13-14 November; he 
observed, “ although the sky was almost constantly clouded, 
72 meteors, of which 36 appeared between the hours of 4 
and 6 a.m., when only 0 - 2 of the sky was clear.” But in any 
case, so“ far as present accounts are concerned, it would 
appear that the display this year was by no means a very 
extraordinary one. 
The position of Mr. Knott’s Observatory is Lat. 51° 0' 41" 
N., Long. 0°. O'. 34". W. 
In the discussion which ensued Mr. Thomas Heelis, 
F.R.A.S., pointed out the advantage first suggested by 
Quetelet, in 1841, of recording not only the position of the 
radiant point but also the mean distance from such point at 
which the meteors became visible ; and Mr. Baxendell con- 
curred in this, stating that he had himself, in the display of 
1833, noted that the meteors had apparently lain in at least 
two strata, each stratum having its peculiar mean distance 
of apparition from the radiant point. 
Mr. Heelis also called attention to the danger which 
appeared to him to exist of forming a theory of meteors from 
observations taken from a one-sided point of view, and urged 
that as the observations of M. Coulvier-Gravier, in France, 
had led him to the conclusion that all meteors were atmo- 
spheric, whilst the form adopted by the British Association 
had been framed by a committee the members of which 
regarded all meteors as cosmical, each form should in the 
interests of truth be so far altered as to inclose, when 
