OBSERVATIONS OF THE LARGE METEOR OF THE 6TH NOVEMBER, 1869.

"A. S. Herschel, Esq. &c.

66

Sir, I was fortunate enough to witness the appearance of a splendid meteor on Saturday evening. I was walking northwards from this place at 6h. 50m., or thereabouts, and a bright light suddenly appearing all around me, caused me to turn, and I saw at that moment a meteor in the act of exploding. I can compare it to nothing so nearly like the explosion of a sky-rocket high up in the air, which on the spur of the moment, and being the time for fireworks, I considered it to be.

"I saw several fragments flying apart, as in the explosion of a rocket; they appeared to be of different colours, some blue, others orange-coloured, and white, and above this spot there was the train of light caused by the motion of the meteor, standing like a slender pillar of fire quite perpendicularly, and reaching to the star Vega. A small luminous cloud, like a 'nebula,' was visible for several minutes at the spot where the meteor had disappeared. The direction from Hawkhurst was nearly west. I particularly noticed the extreme rapidity of the meteor's flight, and its perpendicular direction towards the earth.

[In a diagram which accompanied this letter, the meteor began at Vega Lyræ, and ended near μ, &, Herculis. In a second letter Mr. Humphrey gives the following reconsidered account of its position]:

"When I observed the meteor I endeavoured to fix in my mind the relative positions of several brilliant stars, and of the Milky Way to the place in the heavens where it appeared. I noticed a streak of light, its downward track,—extending upwards to a tolerably bright star,—and directly above it, at a considerable altitude, was another star brighter than the other. I also observed the Milky Way a little to the left of the point of explosion, and several dim stars also a little to the left of the same spot. When I reached home I consulted a perforated planisphere of the constellations, and fixed on the two stars a Cygni and Vega Lyra as the two on which I had aligned the meteor; but when I came to see their altitude on the first fine evening after the meteor appeared, I felt sure that I had made a mistake in mentioning Vega Lyre as the point where the meteor appeared, and that the star to which the streak of light extended was Ras Athagus,-a Ophiuchi, -Vega Lyra being the one that I had aligned it to. I now feel quite certain that the meteor disappeared a little to the right of By Ophiuchi."

"Sir, I enclose a slip cut from the Daily News [describing the meteor as observed, at about 7 o'clock, at Highclere, Hants]. At the same hour of that evening, the 6th, walking from Ramsgate to Broadstairs, about midway between the two towns, my face being to the N.E., a strong reflection of light from the ground caused me to turn quickly, when I saw in the S.W. what had all the appearance of a brilliant rocket, but descending nearly vertical, the inclination from the vertex being about 20 N. In its descent it must have passed over the star B Ophiuchi, that being the position of the stationary train which continued visible over a minute. Not seeing the commencement, I am unable to give so good a description as I could wish, but the bright flash which attracted my notice was but momentary, the body continuing its very rapid motion below the horizon, the whole occupying scarcely two seconds.

"Broadstairs, Kent, Nov. 9th, 1869.

"I am, &c.,

"JAMES CHAPMAN."

[The positions of these observers' places were about,-Hawkhurst, N. lat. 51° 2′, E. lon. 30'; Broadstairs and Ramsgate (halfway between the towns), N. lat. 51° 19', E. lon. 1° 25'. They were therefore situated very nearly in the direction of the line of sight drawn from either towards the point of the horizon where the meteor disappeared; and the small difference between the observed positions of the meteor at the two places, although nearly fifty miles apart, is sufficiently accounted for by the very similar positions which the places themselves bore to the meteor's real path.]

[We have since received the following further communication from Mr. Herschel]:

Sir,-In continuation of the description which I sent you, in my last letter, of the appearance of the large meteor of the 6th of last month, as observed at Hawkhurst and near Broadstairs, in Kent, I am now very happy to be able to send you Mr. James Chapman's correction of his observation of the meteor's path at the latter place. His index-star "B Ophiuchi," over which the meteor must have crossed, turns out, as I anticipated, to have been beta Ophiuchi; and his observed position now agrees very closely with the apparent path of the meteor as observed at Hawkhurst. I will let his letter speak for itself, of which I enclose a short extract, and I am sorry that I was so busily engaged when it arrived, and have been so constantly occupied with other pressing duties ever since, that I was not able to send it to you on its first receipt. I would also gladly compare it with Mr. W. F. Denning's observation of the meteor's path at Bristol, "from 140 E. of Serpentis to R. A. 18h. S. Decl. 100"; and with Mr. D. La Touche's note of its course at Stokesay in Shropshire, "that the streak was 150 in length, extending in a straight line from a Capricorni to σ (Sigma) Sagittarii, halfway between those two stars;' if I had time to calculate from them the real height &c., of the meteor. As soon as I have a little more leisure, I hope that I will be able to send you the result.

The sky is quite cloudy here this evening, with rain, and a gale of S.W. wind. I looked out at 6 o'clock, during a fine interval of about ten minutes, without seeing any meteors. The moon was shining brightly. Last night, at the same time, there was no meteor visible in half an hour; but a pretty bright display of aurora from 6h. to 6h. 30m., with a low arch in the N.W. and streamers in bunches, and aigrettes shooting upwards nearly to Polaris. It ceased at half-past 6 o'clock, having grown higher; and at the same time apparently scattered and diffused itself until it disappeared. From 11h. to 11h. 30m. there were no more signs of the aurora; and without moon and in a clear sky I saw only one meteor in half an hour. The December meteors, this year, have, I am afraid, been very poorly represented. Mr. G. L. Tupman's description of the November meteor-shower at Port-Saïd, near Alexandria, in the Times of the 8th inst., is a good proof that the maximum occurred on the night of the 13th-14th ult.; and gives a rather vivid account of its brightness, and short duration, in which it resembled the showers of 1866 and 1867; but the numbers seen were evidently much less than in those years. M. F. Denza, of Moncalieri, near Turin, writes me that the following numbers were counted, at the Observatory there, on the successive nights :

Showing, also, a maximum abundance on the same night.

He has reserved all particular details of his observations to send them to M. Le Verrier, for the "Association Scientifique de France."

Glasgow, Dec. 12, 1869.

I remain, &c.,

A. S. HERSCHEL.

METEOR OF NOVEMBER 6th, 1869.

Description of the meteor's course, as seen between Broadstairs and Ramsgate, about 2' south of the N. Foreland Light, by Mr. James Chapman :

“I send on tracing-paper the appearance of the stars which were above the western horizon in the immediate neighbourhood of the meteor, taken from a sidereal map of which the Rev. Thomas Milner is the author. The star B (beta) is the one very near to which the meteor passed, so much so that the south side of the stationary train appeared to my vision to partially cover that star. I have marked the zenith-point, from which is drawn the dotted vertical line; whence it appears, by the double line of the meteor's path, that to me it deviated somewhat from the perpendicular. Its greatest brightness seemed to have occurred at the first appearance; though in the rapid and short descent it appeared to give out a profusion of luminous fragments, which the Hawkhurst correspondent very correctly describes as resembling a rocket. I should also add that my horizon was bounded by trees not very distant, notwithstanding which it certainly appeared to descend below B (beta) before exploding. There must have been a very bright ignition, of which I only saw the reflection; the luminous fragments flying off during the descent seemed to indicate a protracted explosion, the end of which I was prevented from seeing by the intervention of the trees."

[The tracing shows the path of the meteor in an almost perpendicular line from a point about three-fourths of the distance from the zenith_to B Ophiuchi, passing almost close to that star, and between it and a Ophiuchi, towards the horizon.]

On the subject of Meteorites we have extracted the following letters from the Standard:

A STONE CRYING OUT.

Sir,-In your journal of the 18th of November last, there was an account of the fall of a flint meteorolite at Fawley, near Southampton, Hants, in a letter from A. T. Smith, Esq., of that place, which appears to me so remarkable, that, as I have not seen it subsequently noticed by those more directly conversant with geological studies, I venture, if you will permit me, to recall attention to it.

The meteorolites which have been noted hitherto, and recognised as such, have not been of that description. But the origin of the flint formation, consisting of separate balls in stratified layers among the chalk, has been an unexplained mystery. The existence of shells, fossil sponges, and coralines, among the chalk, and even of corals imbedded in flint itself, of which there are specimens in the Museum, indicate that, in such instances, it must have been once under the sea. But as two-thirds of the globe are covered with sea, a large portion of the meteorolites may be believed to have fallen there. If a flint meteorolite, while yet in a soft state (and that which fell at Fawley is thought to have been soft when it reached the ground), fell upon a projecting coral, it would be pierced by it, and so having imbedded it, would probably break it off, and carry it along with it to the bottom. There are appearances which may favour the opinion of the for

mation of the flint by intense heat melting and separating the silica from a material containing other substances; the exterior crust of the flint having apparently, like felspar, some substance fused in combination with the silica, and with which it had therefore been in contact. By the intense heat of the meteor, in its fall other portions of the material, divested of the melted silica, might be pulverised and precipitated in chalk dust. The forms of flints are such as agree with their formation, not in cracks or fissures of the earth, like siliceous veins, or by filtration and deposit of silicated thermal waters, but in free space, where they could, and naturally would, assume the globular form, variously modified by occasionally running together, also affected by dropping in a soft or semi-liquid state into undulating water. The effect of rapid cooling by the water, or in some cases collision with rocks, would account for some cleavages and fractured edges, which modify the generally rounded form.

What continuous and severe meteoric showers, like hail and snow-storms, this planet may have been visited with in its earlier physical history we may thus have some indications of. The recent flint fall bears testimony for its species. Detached or sporadic falls might occur later than the general showers; and, having regard to the sharp-edged and pyramidal forms into which I find flint tends to split when it has been exposed to a strong red heat, I incline to think that the broken flints, which have been made so much of as supposed evidences of man's existence in long pre-Adamite ages and of his construction at that time of rude spears and axes, are no more than natural splinters of some large sporadic flint meteorolites. The drawings which Sir Charles Lyell has given of some of them from the valley of the Somme in his "Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man," pages 114, 115, impress me strongly with this idea. Sir Charles confesses that their sharp edges have certainly not been obtained in the manner in which any known human savages ever sharpened their stone implements. The evidence supposed to be afforded by them to the extreme antiquity of the human race may thus require revision-if it be not rather placed in the same category with the exploded evidence of the celebrated “Abbeville jaw," for the conclusive confutation of which we were indebted at the time to Dr. Carpenter.

If you can afford space for this letter the message of this new aërial visitor may have some interest for others, as it has had for me. am, Sir, your faithful servant, W. B. GALLOWAY.

1 Fitzroy-road, N. W. Dec. 4, 1869.

I

Sir,-How far the fact of a flint aërolite having fallen at all will bear scientific investigation, I know not. The assertion that such has been the case is so extraordinary that I trust the matter will be looked into by properly-qualified persons. At present we can receive the report with the utmost hesitation-not that we have any doubt, of course, in the veracity of the narrator, but because we think he may have been deceived.

Your correspondent Mr. W. B. Galloway, can, I should imagine, have very little acquaintance with the flint formation, even as far as it is illustrated by the common flint stones in the roads of the suburbs of London. He remarks that flint naturally takes a globular form, and was not deposited in clefts or fissures of the earth; nor, thirdly, by filtration and deposit of silicated thermal waters; and, lastly, that it probably dropped in a soft and semi-liquid state into water, which would account for the cleavages and fractures which occur in some flints. This last can be dismissed with a word or two. If flint was ever split in the manner suggested, no doubt such

would be the general rule-in fact, most flints, all having a similar origin and being deposited under similar conditions, would be so cleft and cracked; but flint nodules are always solid and unbroken, unless the strata in which they occur have been disturbed-the greater the disturbance the greater the amount of fracture; so that at White Cliff, in the Isle of Wight, where the lines of flints are almost vertical, being situated, as it is, close to the point of upheaval, in the centre of Sandown Bay, where the wealden is exposed, the flints, though apparently perfect, upon a touch of stone or hammer immediately fall into fragments.

Your correspondent's first instance also militates against cleavage by sudden cooling, for if it cooled so suddenly as to be split as described, it could not have surrounded, in its passage through the waters, sponges, corals, shells, or the like. But the ordinary appearance of flints in a highly fossiliferous chalk precludes the possibility of there being any truth in this theory. We do not find one or more corals being struck in the descent, and so adhering, but flint running into and so pervading the finest and most intricate organisms. We find the mass of flint covered on all sides with remains of all such things as grew at the bottom of the sea where they were deposited, even the impress of sea-weeds, coralines, small and large shells, echinoderms with their spines entire, and so doubtless at the bottom of the sea. That flint naturally takes a globular form is not a fact, for it is found of every conceivable shape, none being more common than that of a long, irregular, cylindrical form-doubtless in innumerable instances the form was determined by the organic matter which formed the nucleus round which it collected. But it is not by any means universally found in disjoined masses. It often is found in "fissures and cracks." It is frequently to be seen about Ramsgate and the coast of that neighbourhood, for example, running down the cleavage of the chalk, in thickness varying from an inch and a half to the thinness of a piece of Bristol board. This would seem to show that, as far as this flint is concerned, its formation took place subsequent to the cleavage. Again, between Ramsgate and Broadstairs, for miles in length, and of indefinite extent inland, there is tabular flint of extraordinary thickness, ranging from two to nine or ten inches in thickness. I need not say that it is physically impossible that this could have been due to aërolites. It might have flowed in like lava possibly, but the preservation in it, as in all flints, of the most delicate natural objects, I think, proves that the amount of heat which caused the absolute liquefaction of flint to a tenuity so subtle as to permeate in the most perfect manner the beautiful choanites, favosites, sponges of all kinds (as we find especially in beautiful chalcedony, which forms the centre of so much of the Isle of Wight and Sussex flints), could not have been any heat approaching to that of lava, or even red hot metal. This is, doubtless, also proved by the tiny delicate shells found sticking to and embedded in the ordinary flints.

In fact, nothing but filtration of silicated thermal waters will account for the preservation of the exquisite specimens of branching sponges and choanites, and the like, which we find in chalcedony, in the centre of any of the larger flints, even of the gravel beds round London, especially the north-east -in fact, such specimens as, when denuded of their flint coverings by rolling in the sea, are picked up as pebbles at Brighton or Sandown.

In conclusion, I assert that no flint fracture has ever been observed that was not due to mechanical force, either caused by alteration of position, natural cleavage, or the like, and offer for the consideration of your readers the following facts connected with the subject, and disproving any possibility of flint dropping from the sky and cooling as it went down through the water.