Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles* 317 



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arid having a diameter of about 20' of a degree. Its course (east- 

 ward) was rapid, inclined to the horizon at an angle of about 50°, 

 and described in three or four seconds an arch of about 15°, when 

 it disappeared quite abruptly. During its appearance the light was 

 of a splendour equal to that of the mid-day sun. 



At Newhouses, about a mile north of this place, it appeared at 

 the commencement of a size not exceeding that of a shooting-star, 

 but increased almost instantaneously to a diameter equal to that of 

 the sun. On the point of disappearing it separated into numerous 

 scintillant fragments. 



Horton in Ribblesdale, Sept. 10, 1828. J. Nixon. 



AURORA BOREALIS ? 



A remarkable light resembling the aurora borealis was lately ob- 

 served at Boreham in Essex, by our correspondent Dr. Forster ; it 

 occupied the northern hemisphere, to which so late even as mid- 

 night it gave a fine clear orange tint, at times so clear that one might 

 have read a large print by it. As it declined, a storm gathered in 

 the same quarter, which is rather an unusual circumstance ; and by 

 about two o'clock thunder began to be heard. The storm increased 

 before three, and became one of the most violent ever remembered 

 in the county : an almost uninterrupted succession of flashes, with 

 sharp and rolling thunder, continued till past four o'clock, when the 

 storm gradually passed off. 



SOLAR SPOTS. 



The two solar spots described under our last Meteorological Re- 

 port, p. 236, came on the sun's eastern limb again on the 6th instant, 

 but from the interposition of clouds the time could not be ascer- 

 tained. The lower spot, which had before divided into four, re- 

 turned waning, and without any perceptible umbra : by the 9th 

 they had increased to eight very small black specks, and on the 12th 

 were evanescent, making the period on the sun's disk from the ap- 

 pearance of the original spot, sixty days. The upper one returned 

 with additional spots near it, which we shall not notice at present, 

 although one of them from its proximity has been found useful to 

 a continuance of the observations. On the 9th its umbra was con- 

 spicuous, but the nucleus had decreased to a small size. On the 

 13th it was again nearest to the sun's centre, and on the 16th it 

 had lost the eastern side of its umbra. On the 19th at sunset it was 

 on the sun's western limb, having a large facula on the eastern side 

 of it (in which it is probable another spot will soon appear), and 

 must have gone round on his posterior side between 9 and 10 o'clock 

 that evening. As it did not return again, we shall now close our 

 remarks on it. Up to the 19th instant it had been on the sun's disk 

 91 days, a longer period perhaps than any solar spot on record ; 

 during which time it presented a variety of changes in appearance 

 and magnitude, varying from 4000 to 14,000 miles in diameter, and 

 afforded good opportunities from day to day in fine weather of as- 

 certaining satisfactorily the apparent time of each revolution, namely, 



27 days, 



