to the stars, though some of them occasionally shone without any perceptible interruption. At one time Orion appeared as if completely covered with a flimsy mantle of a deep red colour; so flimsy, indeed, that the principal stars, Beteigeuse, Bellatrix, and Rigel, suffered but little from their usual splendour; the natural red tint of the former, however, was obviously enhanced by the auroral haze, and the others slightly partook of the flimsy red tinge; indeed, the whole of the stars in the southern heavens were more or less dimmed, and many of the smaller ones completely obscured. In the north, also, and, indeed, on every side, a thin haze prevailed in obstructing the natural refulgence of the stars, rendering them dim and gloomy. There was a brisk south wind all the evening, and the thermometer stood at about 34°. The whole display of the meteor on this occasion, and also on the 18th of November, appeared to take place in an atmosphere of highly-attenuated nubiferous matter.

1849. Sunday, January 14.-Stormy morning of west wind and heavy rain. The thermometer 50°. Very windy all day, with heavy showers. A loud clap of thunder about noon, which was heard, for several miles round this place; and in the neighbourhood of Warrington there were several flashes of lightning seen, accompanied with loud thunder. At three in the afternoon, the thermometer fell to 43° and to 40° at night. The clouds entirely disappeared in the evening, and the stars shone with a feeble lustre, indicating a great abundance of aqueous vapour in the air.

About half past eight a beautiful aurora borealis presented itself in the shape of a well-defined luminous arch, which crossed the northern heavens, and from which proceeded various groups of streamers; but nothing extraordinary was observed, though closely watched, till eleven o'clock. The arch, in this case, was nearly, if not exactly, at right angles to the true meridian.

Monday, February 19.-Stormy west wind, with heavy rainclouds in the morning. Thermometer 47°; it rose to 50°, and much rain fell during the day. The wind continued high until evening, when it slackened a little, but still kept up a strong cold breeze. At night, there appeared an aurora borealis of the most extraordinary character hitherto recorded in the history of the meteor. It commenced with the close of the day, with a strong glare of light in the northern heavens, but without any definite shape or boundaries, and continued in this condition till nearly eight o'clock, about which time some faint colourless streamers appeared, and, occasionally, dim flashes of light swept across the sky, generally from east to west, and at a higher altitude than was reached by any of the streamers; but neither appeared to have any reference to the northern glare of light, which continued nearly steady from first to last. The horizontal span of this light reached from beneath the tail of the Great Bear, or about the shoulder of Bootes on the eastern side, to nearly the chest of Pegasus, on the western side; but the boundaries were so

badly defined that no exact point in the heavens could be selected to mark the precise dimensions. The altitude of this northern light was quite as difficult to ascertain as its horizontal range, because of its gradual softening into the ordinary nocturnal colour of the sky. I can only say that it embraced a Lyræ and a Cygni, which were seen within it; the latter star just within its upper edge.

Such were the characteristics of the meteor till nearly nine o'clock, about which time commenced the first novelty in the history of the aurora borealis. A glow of light made its appearance close to the tail of the Great Bear, which waxed to a considerable degree of brightness, and after remaining for about half a minute, it gradually waned in splendour, until it finally disappeared. This spectacle had just ended, when a horizontal arrangement of short glowing beams, of the usual shape of streamers, began to parade the northern heavens, about half-way between the steady glare of light already described, and the Pole-star. They came into existence on the eastern side of the meridian, and marched very orderly, one after auother, westward, in the same regular order of succession as they sprang into existence, until they reached a point directly beneath Cassiopia's Chair, where they became extinct, and were successively lost in the sky at the moment of their respective arrival at this spot, their apparent destination. This scene lasted several minutes, almost without interruption. During some part of the time the line of columns, between the two points in the heavens, was complete from one to the other, and had very much the appearance of an army of soldiers marching in single file, where the observer could just see them coming into view on his right, and vanish on his left; the whole marching past as if for his especial review. The bases of these luminous beams were flat and well defined, but the upper extremities were of a diffused radiant character, and gradually softened off till lost. During the time of this strange spectacle, several minor groups made momentary displays in different parts of the northern sky, and all seemed to move in the same direction, from east to west.

The next scene in the drama was partly similar to that just described, but of far greater splendour and extent. It began about half-past nine, at a point near the tip of the tail of the Great Bear, with a steady glow of pale light, from which issued an immense host of bright glowing beams, which marched across the meridian, with their centres at the altitude of the Pole-star, until they reached nearly to Venus. The movements of this grand array were slower than those of the first described columns, and also different in character. The first glided smoothly along without much vibratory motion; but these exhibited a kind of dancing or jog-trot sort of march; which appeared as regular as the march of an army of soldiers guided by a band of music; all hands, from front to rear, keeping step in a very orderly manner. The length of these beams much exceeded the length of the former group, and their upper extremities were so well

defined that they formed, whilst the line was complete, a beautiful arch, the highest point of which was considerably higher that the Pole-star; but their lower parts shot downwards in variously-pointed terminations, like a series of inverted streamers, and were lost, at many different altitudes, amongst the stars, but never reached so low as the northern glow of light. Like the former group, these beams or columns sprang into existence individually, and in regular succession, from the same source, near the tail of the Great Bear, and took up the line of march from the commencement of their respective births, so that the individuals forming the moving line were every one of a different age, the foremost the eldest, and all the rest in the order of succession, from front to rear; and they appeared to vanish in the same order of succession, at a point in the heavens close upon the planet Venus, so that the last which sprang into existence in the east, kept its position in the rear of the line all the way to the west, and was the last that was seen, individually, in this part of the aërial spectacle. But this was not the conclusion of the scene; for instead of these luminous beams vanishing entirely, in the manner of the previous group, they seemed to assemble, in a close compact body, in the west, where they disappeared as individuals, and to form a broad luminous streak, which reached downwards almost to the horizon, and which, for a while, increased in splendour and dimensions in proportion to the number of beams assembled. This extraordinary streak of light continued in full splendour for about two minutes, when it began to waver; and its gradual decrease in both intensity and dimensions, until its final disappearance, formed the closing part of this second grand act of the meteoric drama.

We now come to the last, and by far the most magnificent spectacle of the whole. It began about ten o'clock. Its general cha

racter was similar to that last described, but its splendour and duration far exceeded it. The luminous beams, in this case, issued, as before, from a point in the heavens near to the tail of the Great Bear, at that time a considerable height above the north-eastern horizon, and formed an arched line of march (for a march it really was) above the Pole-star, reaching exactly to the Pleiades westward. The length of these auroral beams was greater than that of the last described group, and terminated, both upwards and downwards, in the manner that streamers usually terminate upwards. These aërial spectres seemed to form a division of grenadiers, when compared with the hosts that had preceded them, not only with respect to their magnitude, but also as regards the stateliness of their movement, which was truly solemn and majestic, and well calculated to furnish the sublimest imagery for the poet, and to store the imagination of the superstitious with the most awful portentions. From the wellknown interpretations which the ancients have given to certain appearances of the aurora borealis, some persons have been led to think

that the writer of the Second Book of Maccabees alluded to something of this kind:

"Through all the city, for the space of forty days, there were seen horsemen running in the air in cloths of gold, and armed with lances like a band of soldiers, and troops of horsemen in array, encountering and running against one another, with shaking of shields and multitudes of pikes, and drawing of swords, and casting of darts, and golden ornaments and harness.”—Book ii., c. 5.

Although there appeared nothing like horsemen in the aurora I am describing, it was hardly possible to resist the idea of a very formal and well regulated march of soldiers, in single rank, being strikingly imitated in this very extraordinary display of the meteor, which concluded with a long broad streak of yellowish-white light, the upper extremity of which reached nearly to the Pleiades, and the lower almost to the horizon, forming a brilliant tail, as it were, to that group of stars; this association of the Seven Stars, and sloping streak of auroral light, was no inapt representation of the head and tail of a comet, only that the stellar group was too dull to represent the prominent part alluded to, being completely thrown into the shade by the refulgence of the auroral light.

This streak of light continued for some minutes in nearly the same position, and gradually faded away in the same part of the heavens as that in which it was formed. It began in the same manner as the streak of light previously described; that is, on the arrival of the first beams of the group, and gradually waxed in splendour in proportion to the number accumulated at this terminal of the line, until the arrival of the last beam; and after shining in full glory for a short time, it gradually waned, until finally lost amongst the stars. With this grand spectacle the most interesting part of the aurora terminated; but a glow of light illuminated a great portion of the northern heavens the remainder of the night, and until three or four o'clock next morning. The wind was strong from the west, and piercing cold during the whole night.

(To be concluded in next Number.)

On Oceanic Infusoria, Living and Fossil.

"The improvements effected of late years in the microscope," says Dr Harvey, in his interesting volume just published,*" may well be said to have opened to us a material world of whose existence we should otherwise be wholly ignorant. The number of species of animals and plants

The Sea-Side Look; by W. H. Harvey, M.D., Member of the Royal Irish Academy. Van Voorst, London, 1849.

now known, whose forms are so minute that they are individually invisible to the naked eye, and only appreciable when collected together in masses, is very great; and the catalogue is daily enlarging as the waters of the sea, and of lakes and ponds, are more carefully subjected to examination. What to the naked eye seems like a green or brownish slimy scum, attached to the stalks of water-plants, or floating on the surface of stagnant pools, displays to the microscope a series of elegant and curious forms, endowed with a most perfect symmetry and delicate structure of parts, each acting in the circle of its narrow sphere as perfectly as the more bulky creations above it. The great work of Ehrenberg has made the forms of many of those curious creatures sufficiently known; and a most elaborate monograph of a portion of them,* recently published in this country, has added much to the general history of the subject, while it affords to British students exquisitely-accurate figures and careful descriptions of all the British species of the group illustrated. The plants included in this microscopic world are classed by botanists under two families, the Desmideæ, which exclusively inhabit fresh water, and the Diatomaceæ, a great number of which are marine. The forms of these minute organisms are strange; they exhibit mathematical figures, circles, triangles, and parallelograms, such as we find in no other plants, and their surface is often most elaborately sculptured. Isthmia obliquata is found in spring and early summer on the stems of many of the filiform algae, where it forms little glittering tufts a line or two in height. It has been brought from many distant parts of the world, both of the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans. Many other species accompany it in our own and other seas. The Licmophora or Fanbearer is one of the most beautiful of our native kinds, and is very common in April and May on the leaves of Zostera, as well as on many of the smaller algae. It is very generally distributed round the British Coasts, forming gelatinous masses of a clear brown colour on the plants it frequents. Under the microscope, however, its colours are much more gay, a yellow shade, variously banded and marked with deeper-coloured spots, tinging the fan-like leaves, which are borne on slender threads transparent as glass. The pieces or joints of which these plants are composed are called frustules; and each frustule consists of a single cell, whose coat is composed of a very delicate membrane made of organised silex. That these plants have thus the power of withdrawing silex or flint earth in some manner from the waters of the sea, and fixing it in their tissues is certain, but the exact method in which this is effected has not been ascertained. A remarkable point in their history results from this power of feeding on flint. It is this: their bodies are indestructible. Thus their constantly accumulating remains are gradually deposited in strata, under the waters of the sea, as well as in lakes and ponds.

* Ralfs on British Desmideæ. London, 1848. Thirty-five coloured plates,