masses. standing, at 9 a. m., 29.200, the thermometer reaching 520. Towards evening the wind drew round to W. N. W. and N. W., the clouds cleared off, and at 11 p. m. the barometer had risen to 29.300. Át 8 o'clock in the evening, the atmosphere was quite free from cloud, and from this period until halfpast 10, there was the most brilliant display of Aurora I have ever witnessed, far surpassing that of the preceding evening. A beautiful and very luminous arch stretched from N. N. E. to West, at about 35 degrees from the horizon, sometimes quite complete, at others broken into detached luminous This arch, at 9 p. m., passed through Lyro, its upper edge just touching the two principal stars in Ursa Minor, and thence extending through the Pointers in Ursa Major; long luminous streamers were shooting out from it at all points,-sometimes more brilliant in the West, at others in the North, and then in the N. E., varying every moment. At one period appearing, at various points between the concavity of the arch and the horizon, like the tail of an immense comet, at others darting out, in great numbers, from the convexity towards the zenith. Added to all these interesting appearances, were continual and extremely rapid flashes or undulations of light,- -as if of broad, broken, horizontal bands of lambient flame_which swept, with the rapidity of lightning, from all the northern half of the horizon, to a point almost exactly over-head. These coruscations, or flashes, very frequently left permanent streaks of light exactly resembling strongly illuminated bands of delicate cirri. These luminous undulations, or flashesalways converging to a particular spot-formed, at times, a most beautiful wreathed crown, which would remain permanent over Gamma Andromeda. These luminous flashes stretched, at one period, far into the southern region of the heavens. INDEX. Bishop Burnett's History of his own 113 Birds (The) of Britain, systemati- Caterpillars, An Outline of British, Chemistry, Observations on, 248 Comets, On the Influence of, 218 Critical Notices of New Publications: Higgins, 332. A Practical Trea- Education, Remarks on the necessity Frontal Sinuses, Aphorisms on the, Fine Arts: Birmingham Society of Halley's Comet, Hints to Observers Ichthyolites, Professor Agassiz on, 132 Latin, On the Study of, more parti- Literary Intelligence, 173, 344 Meteorological Report, 175, 346 Non-Permeability of Glass by Wa- New Publications, List of, 173, 345 Ornithological Nomenclature, Re- Ornithology, A Retrospect of the Painting and Sculpture, Cursory ob- servation on certain inconsiderate Society, 309. Liverpool Literary, River Huallaga, Remarks on the 36. Scientific Miscellanea, 342 ERRATA. Page 133, line 30, insert, after Professor Agassiz, "has been END OF THE THIRD VOLUME. BARLOW, PRINTER, Bennett's-HILL, BIRMINGHAM. |