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Re: (meteorobs) Double oversight

At 09:00 AM 2000-03-30 -0500, you wrote:
>If I may be forgiven for accidentally double posting my last message, I
>might also be forgiven for overlooking one interesting fact in said
>message:
>      Mr. Kingsmill never mentions whether or not he viewed the event
>from *just* his window which faced "almost due north"
>or whether he went outside to get a better look.  Watching from his
>window only, the Andromedid radiant would have been much easier to see
>than the Leonid radiant, with the former being northwest while the
>latter was almost due east.  He would have practically needed to stick
>his head out of his window to see the Leonid radiant.

True; but he *did* say "all over the sky", implying he went outside. I
think we can give him the benefit of the doubt that once he became aware
that something unusual was happening, he *did* go outside, particularly
because he apparently was a knowledgeable meteor observer, judging by his
knowledge of the buzz word "radiant". We have already assumed that the sky
had to have been fairly clear so there seems little reason not to assume he
did go outside.

What surprises me is his long delay before writing his report to _Nature_.
Even from the interior of China in 1886, one might think that he would have
written his observations to *someone*. If not, then why did he finally do
so in 1900?? As late as 1939 when there were some supply convoys with large
trucks, I've read that such convoys still took up to a week to make a
single run between Shanghai and Peking; they were often ambushed by
bandits. It seems reasonable to presume that wherever Mr. Kingsmill was
within the "interior", he *should* have had the opportunity to send out
mail at least once a year in 1886. His article in _Nature_ certainly sounds
as if he never had written about his observation before, at least to a
scientific journal.

I would venture to guess that Mr. Kingsmill was most likely some kind of
Christian missionary; but as you pointed out, his nationality is unclear.
If I remember right, missionaries from America, England and France
(possibly Germany, too, during the 1880's) were quite active in China in
those days. Kingsmill doesn't sound French or German, of course :o)

SteveH
Shrewsbury MA

P.S. We're moving from this house this week so I'm going to have to
unsubscribe until I get relocated. I'll be back sooner or later! :o)
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