language will be the mother tongue of two hundred millions of people.

For this consummation, the language has long been in a course of preparation by Providence. It is the language of freedom, of progress, of civilisation, of vigorous life and action, and, may I not add, of religion also? How important it is that the literature of a language with such prospects before it should be pure and wholesome! In the future history of the world, English speech and English institutions must play a most important part, contributing, let us hope, to the fulfilment of the designs of Providence;

EXTRAORDINARY MEETING.

ROYAL INSTITUTION, 14th December, 1868.

J. BIRKBECK NEVINS, M. D., VICE-PRESIDENT, in the Chair.

The Minutes of the former Extraordinary Meeting having been read, it was moved by the Honorary Treasurer, and seconded by the Rev. H. H. Higgins, and carried unanimously, "That the alterations in the laws be now read a second time, and confirmed."

FIFTH ORDINARY MEETING.

ROYAL INSTITUTION, 14th December, 1868.

J. BIRKBECK NEVINS, M.D., VICE-PRESIDENT,
in the Chair.

Mr. Denis Daley was unanimously elected an Ordinary Member.

Mr. T. J. Moore exhibited a living freshwater fish, brought from the River Plate by Capt Perry (s. s. Humboldt), Associate of the Society, a remarkable specimen of the hammer-headed shark, and other fish brought by the same gentleman, and, with many other specimens, presented by him to the Free Public Museum.

Mr. Moore also exhibited a young living specimen of the sturgeon, received during the afternoon from Dr. Hilgendorf, director of the Zoological Gardens at Hamburg, in

exchange for living specimens sent from the Museum for the celebrated aquaria in those gardens.

Mr. Morton exhibited a specimen of meteoric iron, discovered in a mass of greenstone rock in Connemara.

The following paper was then read:

ON METEORS AND METEORIC ASTRONOMY.

BY THE REV. JOHN SEPHTON, M. A.,

HEAD MASTER OF THE LIVERPOOL INSTITUTE,
AND LATE FELLOW OF ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE.

*

IN a large and important work on Astronomy, published at the beginning of the present century by a distinguished professor at the University of Cambridge, the subject of meteors is untouched. Meteoric astronomy is, in effect, not simply a work of our own age or time, but almost of our own generation †; and every year sees the addition of facts to our existing knowledge of meteors, and also additions of theory to what is a new chapter in astronomy. It may not be amiss, then, to endeavour to give a succinct recapitulation of what has been observed and thought out; and I trust that the great attention which the star showers of 1866 and 1867 demanded and received from educated men, will be a sufficient apology for my venturing to bring before you a subject, which to this day has hardly found a place in the existing text-books of astronomy.

There are three different classes of phenomena, which, although at first sight specifically different, must yet astronomically be placed together, under the general head "meteoric." The first of these is the appearance of shooting stars. On a clear moonless night, when the stars appear to be really as the sand of the sea, the star-gazer's

* Rev. S. Vince.

+ Chladni, Humboldt, Olmsted, Newton, Schiaparelli, Adams.

Last edition of Herschel's Outlines contains an important note, and Lockyer's text-book, 1868, contains An Account of November Meteors.

attention is suddenly arrested by what appears to be one of the fixed stars broken forth from its moorings. After rushing across the sky it is again as suddenly lost to view, or it leaves a train to mark its passage for a few seconds only.

The second phenomenon comprised under the general head meteoric is the fall of aerolites. In the midst of a calm and serene day, a cloud is suddenly formed, is seen at first to move slowly, then more rapidly; there occurs immediately an explosion, and stones are hurled from the cloud in various directions to the earth, which fall often at considerable distances from each other. Similar falls of stones are recorded to have taken place in the midst of storms and tempests of wind and rain*; or, as sometimes happens, a single aerolite, with a rushing noise is seen to bury itself in the earth, to a depth of several feet, and when dug out is found to have a burnt outside crust, and still to possess heat.

The third phenomenon is intermediate between these two. A ball or fiery mass, of as large a diameter as the moon, is seen to pass rapidly over the earth, rarely in broad daylight, most often in the night; and which either entirely disappears, leaving no apparent lasting trace, quite like the ordinary shooting-stars seen in a clear night, or else explodes like the cloud meteors, scattering, or not, aerolites in various directions.

During the past century, meteors of all three kinds have been observed with nicety. The average height at which they first appear is found to be about seventy-three milest; that at which they disappear, fifty-two miles; whilst the average velocity is found to be thirty-five miles per second.

* E. g., at Birmingham, this year, according to a newspaper paragraph, the end of May.

+R. A. S., Feb., 1865, Report.