642 
Fireball Radiant in Sextans. 
[November, 
very great magnitude. The display is obviously of such 
striking character as to render it eminently suited for future 
investigation. The brilliant and startling aspetft of its more 
conspicuous meteors, the seeming endurance of the shower 
far beyond ordinary limits, and its very favourable position in 
the winter sky, will doubtless cause it to attradt many further 
observations. Showers of shooting stars of the normal type 
very probably issue from this radiant of fireballs, and it may 
be assumed, from the conclusive evidence afforded by other 
such streams, that they are not only concurrent in date, but 
closely associated in their physical origin. Whether the 
earlier meteoric displays which occur from the same region 
during the months of November and December have any 
distant connection with those operating in February, March, 
and early in April, is entirely a matter of conjecture in the 
present state of our knowledge. If we accept the theory of 
correlation between the successive groups of shower-meteors 
projected from this point of the sky during the winter months, 
we have an instance of the visible sustenance of a stream 
which far exceeds what is regarded as possible, so that 
pending renewed observations it will be safest to admit the 
extremely doubtful nature of the case. Though these recur- 
rent showers from Sextans furnish a well-defined and appa- 
rently continuous radiant during the winter months, they 
may really consist of a succession of interwoven meteor 
groups whose peculiar arrangement has originally been due 
to the cumulative effects of perturbation exercised by the 
earth in her annual passages through the primitive stream.* 
The series of radiants which have been previously deter- 
mined are concentrated round the point i45‘4° + 3’9° as 
follows : — 
No. 
Epoch. 
Radiant. 
_ \ 
I. 
1872, Odd. 29 — Nov. 13 
a 0 
147°+ 2° 
2. 
1876, Nov. 25 — Dec. 21 
148 + 2 
3- 
1877, December 8 
145 + 7 
4- 
1870, January 4 . . 
I 4 2 + 5 
5- 
1880, January 7 . . 
I40 + 7 
6. 
1877, January 9—17 . . 
146 + 4 
7- 
1870, January 11 
149 + 5 
8. 
1850-67, Jan. 3 — Mar. 16 
143 - 7 
9- 
1872, Feb. 1 — Mar. 12 
H 7 + 4 
10. 
1878, Feb. 24 — 26 
145 + 8 
11. 
1872, Mar 31 — Apr. 12 
147 + 1 
12. 
1872, April 3 .. .. 
146 + 9 
Observations. 
I D. (from Ital. Obs.), 6 meteors. 
D., No. 46, 1876, 11 meteors. 
D., No. 153, 1877. 
Tupman, No. 3. 
Sawyer, No. 1, 2nd catalogue. 
D., very slightly observed.! 
Tupman, No. 3. 
Greg and Herschel, No. 15. 
D. (from Ital. Obs.), 17 meteors. 
Sawyer, No. 3, 1st catalogue. 
D. (from Ital Obs.), 7 meteors. 
Zona (stationary meteor). 
Mean position from 12 observations = 145-4° + 3-9°. 
* See a condensed summary of Sig. Schiaparelli’s views on the probable 
cause of diffuse and multiple radiants, and on the occurrence of families or 
groups of radiant points, in the British Association Report on Luminous 
Meteors for 1871, pp. 44 to 48. 
f Refers to positions determined by the writer, 
