with the explosion. At Knyahinya the report was like that of a hundred

cannons.

A dense cloud, ten times the apparent width of the sun, marked the path of the fireball, extending itself towards Unghvar, a distance of twenty-five miles S., 5° W. from Knyahinya; and it remained visible for fifteen minutes. Two or three minutes after the report was heard, a rattling sound came from the direction of the streak, and labourers at work in the fields saw stones fall. These, when picked up, were ice-cold, and emitted a strong sulphurous odour, that might be perceived at a distance of a mile round the place of fall. At least sixty stones were found, and the largest buried themselves obliquely at an angle of 30° or 35° to the horizon. Thirty-five fragments of the aerolite were sent by the Commissioners to Pesth.

A perfectly incrusted stone was forwarded to Dr. Haidinger at Vienna, who cites the stonefall of Knyahinya, with that of Stannern, as a proof that aerolites, in their native orbits, occasionally consist of a swarm of separate stones, bound together by their mutual gravitation, while yet revolving in an orbit, like one body round the sun. The stone is marked by depressions upon its surface, like a perfect aërolite, and in its interior parts presents a marbled appearance, like the stones of Parnallee and Assam. The specific gravity is 3.520.

IV.

(1.) Meteoric showers of October, 1864, and 1865 compared with previous Meteoric showers.

ν

The exact date of the October shower is not fixed, but varies between the 15th and 26th of October. On the 18th of October 1864, and again on the 20th of October 1865, shower-meteors were observed at Hawkhurst, diverging from a particularly well defined radiant, at Orionis, which preserved its place almost fixed in two successive years. The following is a comparison of the meteors mapped with those of other showers. The Table shows that a large percentage of the meteors mapped in the October shower were far more conformable to a radiant-point than was the case with the meteors in any of the other well-known and previously-examined showers. The initials M. N. refer to the Royal Astronomical Society's Monthly Notices.'

The meteors observed at Hawkhurst, from which the mean deviations of the first two places of the list were taken, were figured upon a map; and a list of the selected observations (only) is annexed in the following Tables, of which the particulars have already been given fully, or in part, in the Catalogue of the Report for 1864,

Selected List of Conformable Meteors observed at Hawkhurst,
1864, January 2nd (fig. 1).

3.

10 34 0

10 40 30

10 48 15

11 15 15

11 20 30

8.

11 25 30

9.

11 28 50

10.

11 45 45

11.

11 53 30

12.

11 57 0

33

13.

11 57 30

14.

12 3 0

Mean values...

Selected List of Meteors observed at Hawkhurst, 1864, April 19th and 20th

(2.) Meteoric shower of 1865, November 13th, A.M.

Mr. W. H. Wood reports at Weston-super-Mare:-On the night of the 12th of November, from 5 to 8h P.M., and again at 11h 30m P.M., the sky was clear at intervals, but no meteors were seen. After midnight the sky continued overcast until the morning. On the night of the 13th, until 1 A.M. on the morning of the 14th, the sky was partially clear, but no meteors were seen. It then clouded over completely until 4 30 A.M., when personal watching was abandoned, no symptom of a meteoric shower having appeared up to this time. From 5h 30m A.M. until sunrise the sky was clear (communicated), and orange-coloured meteors appeared, falling at the rate of 12 per hour, from a general altitude of 25° in the N. and N.N.W., vertically down.

Mr. H. Holiday reports at Torquay:-On the night of the 12th of November, at 9 P.M., Cassiopeia was visible through a break in the clouds. The sky was afterwards examined at intervals throughout the night, and was found constantly overcast. On the night of the 13th the sky was very cloudy, and watching on this night was abandoned.

Mr. T. Crumplen reports at London:-"This morning [the 13th] the sky became almost cloudless at 1h 15m A.M. There were fewer meteors than one might expect to see; but those I saw were of all magnitudes, varying from Venus at its brightest to fifth-magnitude stars. The radiant in Leo came out very well; I also suspect a radiant near a Tauri."

Mr. George Knott thus describes the meteors on the morning of the 13th of November, at Cuckfield, in Sussex (see Monthly Notices of the Manchester Lit. and Phil. Soc., Phys. and Math. Section, Dec. 7th, 1865):-Two observers watched the southern half of the sky. "Between 12h and 1 A.M.

we counted 39 meteors, giving an average of rather more than 0.6 per minute; the next 55 minutes added 61 to the number, giving an average of 1.1 per minute. After half an hour's interval we resumed our watch at 2h 25m A.M., and between that hour and 3h 5m A.M., when we ceased observing, we noted 55 meteors, showing that the average had risen to 1.4 per minute. The observations of the last 40 minutes showed very clearly that the radiant-point was in the immediate vicinity of the star Leonis, or perhaps between that star and e and μ of the same constellation-the neighbourhood, in fact, of what the Rev. C. Pritchard happily terms the " apex of the earth's way." The paths of a few meteors seemed to suggest a second radiant-point in the neighbourhood of ẞ Tauri, but the observed flights were too few to afford satisfactory evidence on the point."

Mr. R. P. Greg reports at Manchester:--" On the night of the 12th, during the hour from 11h to 12h P.M., I saw only two meteors. It then clouded over, but became quite bright again a few minutes before 1" A.M. Between 1 and 2 A.M. I saw a considerable number, of which I mapped some 20 or 30, but had not time to enter all the particulars. The radiant-point was not quite a definite one, some nearer Leo Minor than Leo. Hardly any were visible, except near the radiant-point; say from Ursa Major to Canis Minor. These November meteors were very phosphorescent, in fact nothing else, even the larger ones. I saw two from Cassiopeia, the regular radiant, as different as possible in appearance. At 2h A.M. it clouded over."

Observations of the same shower, by Mr. T. P. Barkas at Newcastle-uponTyne, Mr. S. H. Miller at Wisbeach, and Mr. S. B. Kincaid at Streatham, near London, will be found in the Catalogue of this Report.

On the morning of the 13th of November, the meteoric shower was observed at the Greenwich and Cambridge Observatories, and at Hawkhurst, with a view to determining the heights and velocities of the meteors. The

hourly number of the meteors is stated by Mr. Glaisher and Professor Challis to have exceeded all before recorded at either of those two observatories. More than 250 meteors (279) were recorded at Greenwich, from shortly after midnight until shortly after 5h A.M.

Nearly a thousand meteors are computed to have been visible at Greenwich during the hours from 1 to 5" A.M., appearing in greatest abundance during the hour from 1 to 2h A.M. Nearly two-thirds (172) left luminous trains visible for several seconds after the disappearance of the meteors. Their unusual number, and the appearance of leaving luminous streaks, agree with Olmsted's description of the famous meteors of the 13th of November 1833, and leave no doubt that the meteors were a partial return of the meteoric shower of that year.

The number of meteors of the first class (16) recorded at Hawkhurst during the hour from midnight to 1 o'clock on the morning of the 14th, was nearly equal to the number (17) recorded, under equally favourable circumstances, during the same hour on the morning of the 13th.

The following are the hourly numbers of meteors observed at the three places during the progress of the shower :

:-

The meteors here recorded, with the exception of six meteors observed at Greenwich, were equal to stars of the 3rd magnitude or upwards. More than half the total number of the meteors were equal to or brighter than 1st-magnitude stars. The number of observers was six at the Greenwich Observatory, three at Cambridge, and one at Hawkhurst. The sky was for the most part cloudless throughout the time, and the moon rose at about 4" A.M. Amongst the list of shooting-stars seen at Hawkhurst, seventeen were identical with meteors observed at Greenwich. Fifteen other meteors of the list were identical with meteors seen at the Observatory at Cambridge. The heights and velocities of ten of these accordant meteors were calculated (Tables I., II.); and this is also the number of accordances calculated by Drs. Heis and Behrmann, of meteors observed on the same night between Münster and Göttingen. The average height of the middle of the apparent paths differs little, at both places, from sixty miles above the surface of the earth.

Tables I. and II. contain the apparent and computed paths observed at Hawkhurst, Greenwich, and Cambridge. Table III. contains the paths of 10 meteors similarly observed by Dr. Heis and Dr. Behrmann, on the night of the 13th of November, and computed by Dr. Behrmann (Astr. Nachr. vol. lxvi. p. 331-332).

The average velocity of 11 meteors directed from Leo is 55 English miles per second. The average velocity of 4 meteors directed from Taurus or Perseus is nineteen miles per second. As the former radiant-region is hardly