A. MATHEMATICS AND ASTRONOMY. n 



responses, some denying and others asserting the possibility 

 of such a phenomenon. A Quebec correspondent, however, 

 insists most positively that he has distinguished, in broad 

 daylight, a movement of what appeared to be a light fleecy 

 cloud, which had the changeability and streaming character 

 of an aurora, and which, as night came on, developed into an 

 aurora of the first magnitude. 12 A,March 2, 348. 



ANCIENT PHOENICIAN SUN-DIAL. 



Some considerable interest has lately been excited by the 

 exhibition, before the Academy of Sciences of Paris, of a frag- 

 ment of an ancient sun-dial, obtained during the French cam- 

 paign in Syria in 1860 by M. Renan. This gentleman, then 

 forming part of the scientific mission connected with the 

 army, caused excavations to be made in different localities in 

 ancient Phoenicia, and among the objects of more or less in- 

 terest brought to light in this way was the fragment in ques- 

 tion. It presented certain mathematical peculiarities which 

 are too technical to be introduced here, but its entire arrange- 

 ment was quite scientific, and it has been restored and com- 

 pleted so as to show very distinctly the plan. The epoch of 

 its construction is believed to be subsequent to that of the 

 great Geometers of Alexandria, without whose labors and 

 discoveries it could not have been worked off; and it is prob- 

 able that it is to be included among the works of the Greco- 

 Egyptian renaissance. 6 B,Jxdy 25, 261. 



METEORIC SHOWER IN SWEDEN. 



A late number of Po^grendorff 's Annalen makes mention 

 of a shower of meteoric stones which took place in Sweden 

 on the 1st of January, 1869, not far fromUpsala. These were 

 scattered over a large extent of country, and one of them 

 fell on the ice close to some fishermen, and penetrated to a 

 depth of three or four inches. The largest of the stones 

 weighed about two pounds, and the smallest were very mi- 

 nute. While most of them contained, in large part, the usual 

 ingredients of such objects, there were others composed main- 

 ly of carbon, the percentage of this element amounting to 

 over one half, the other principal ingredients being oxygen, 

 hydrogen, silica, and peroxide of iron. 13 A, December 15, 

 1870, n. ' 



