Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 18.djvu/196

184 horizon soon after dark, and a person who persistently watches it during the night will find, with increasing elevation of the radiant, a corresponding increase in the hourly number of meteors. In 1877, at Bristol, the eastern sky was persistently watched between 9h. 30m. and 14h. 30m., when 354 meteors were seen; and, though the horary





rate before llh. was only 47, it rose to about 80 during the last half of the watch. Indeed, the number of meteors observed at the end of the watch was more than double the number recorded at the beginning of it. Thus it is apparent that the most favorable time for such observations is in the morning hours, and though it is generally inconvenient for amateurs to extend their vigils thus far, the importance of doing so can not be too strongly insisted on.