prevalent Disorders^ Sj-c.y with Volcanic Emanations, 299 



aurora, if not with earthquakes, which certainly seem to 

 correspond with appearances of both. Even the change from 

 warmth to cold, which I will now allude to, evidences the same; 

 as cold is produced by volcanic action, as well as by atmo- 

 spheric phenomena. A writer in the New York Advertiser, 

 who was riding in the stage, in St. Lawrence County, New 

 England, informs us that he encountered a snow storm during 

 the exhibition of the meteors of Nov. 1833 ; and that frequent 

 flashes of light were seen, which were mistaken for lightning, 

 but the meteors they did not see otherwise. (Silliman's Journal, 

 p. 386.) This solitary exception to the general features of 

 the phenomena is very valuable : and the following facts will 

 bear out the narrator. During a snow stm^m at Treves, on 

 Feb. 29. 1817, St. Paul's Church, in that town, was struck 

 by lightning, accompanied by loud thunder. The year 1823 

 was commenced with a frost of unusual intensity and duration* ; 

 yet, even up to the end of Dec. 1822, the volcanic operations 

 of that remarkable year were continued ; and while the frost 

 lasted, and during falls of snow, an earthquake, on Jan. 30., 

 shook the Island of Oeland and other places ; and these con- 

 vulsions succeeded those at Aleppo, which lasted till the 13th 

 of that month. In Hungary, on August 4. 1833, a globe of 

 fire, as large as a carriage wheel, broke against the mountains 

 with a tremendous explosion. The atmosphere immediately 

 became cold, and on the 6th the Alps were covered with snow ; 

 (Courier, Sept. 5. 1833); while, on the 11th of August, there 

 was a considerable fall at Rottenberg, near Nuremberg. After 

 the hurricane of Aug. 31. 1833 (of which hereafter), the 

 thermometer, on Sept. 3., fell at Macon, in France, to zero, 

 and snow fell on the neighbouring hills ; on the 6th, the snow 

 fell fast at Mortagne, in Charente Inferieure; and, on the 

 hills near Dijon, was 2 in. deep. (The snow at Caithness, 

 a few days later, I have mentioned in p. 294.) Hail fell 

 in England on the 28th Jan. 1834, immediately before the 

 sudden change of the long prevalent and violent s. w. gales 

 to the north. This, like the rains which fell so abundantly 

 during the last winter, as well as the snow\ in France, Ger- 

 many, and Scotland, in 1833, was, no doubt, electrical. But 

 volcanic action has produced similar effects. Mr Kelsall, who 

 was an eye-witness of the great eruption of Etna in 1809, 

 writes thus: — " At 15 minutes past 9 a.m., April 1., a quantity 



* The water-pipes under Cornhill, London, were found frozen, 3 ft. 

 below the surface of the pavement. (^A, JR.) 



f Some Englishmen on Etna, in 1814, and Dr. Hooker on Ben Nevis, 

 in July, 1825, were aifected by electricity very sensibly, during snow storms 

 without thunder. {Encyc. Brit., viii. 620., 7th ed.) 



