616 Supposed Connection of Meteoric Phe7iomena, 



zerland ; as at Geneva and Lausanne, where fire appeared. 

 The same phenomenon occurred at Maglanz in Savoy, 

 where the trees were consumed below the ground. {A, R.) A 

 recent number of the Journal of Courland and Livonia (Sept., 

 1834) gives an account of a fire in a great moor, caused by 

 the long drought. Thousands of people were employed in 

 digging ditches to arrest its progress ; but the moor frequently 

 began to burn behind them, the fire rising from the earth 

 having probably spread at a lower depth than the bottom of 

 the ditches.* Similar events have occurred in Russia, Ca- 

 rinthia, &c. 



As general additional illustrations of foregoing statements, 

 w^e might refer to Mrs. Graham's [Calcott's] letter to Mr. 

 Warburton ; in which she says, that, during the evening of 

 Nov. 19. 1822, when the earthquakes commenced in Chile, 

 and previously to them, the aurora australis, and lightning over 

 the Andes, had been seen; that, on Nov. 21., there was a 

 thick fog while the earth was being shaken ; and, on the 26th, 

 she says, " we had a violent northerly wind, with rain, which 

 >was considered very unusual at the season" {GeoL Trans,., i. 

 415. 2d series.) 



The last remark leads naturally to the main subject of the 

 present essay, namely. 



Violent Winds and Hurricanes ; which, as we have seen, 

 have attended the incursions of ravaging insects in the West 

 Indies (p. 610.), the meteors in America [296, 297.]5 the 

 aurora (298.), and earthquakes and volcanic eruptions gene- 

 rally. But it is impossible to enter on this topic without con- 

 necting it with another, the temporary changes of climate, the 

 rains, inundations, and tempests, &c., of the last few years. 



During the last year, " tremendous gales " and hurricanes 

 were most frequent ; and the almost constant position of the 

 wind in the w. and s.w., during the autumn and winter of 

 1833, produced distress and destruction amongst mercantile 

 and nautical interests scarcely ever paralleled. Ships were 

 detained more than three months in the Channel, whilst ves- 

 sels from the westward and southward made incredibly short 

 passages. 



On Jan. 26. 1834, the master of the Scilly packet-boat 

 returned to Penzance for the thirtieth time, having been unable 

 to get across with the mails. [Shipping List,) The Nimrod 



* I am inclined to think that this phenomenon will explain the dubious 

 statement of Tacitus (Ann. xii.) ; on which Dr. Daubeny has commented 

 (^Description of Folcanos, p. 62.), as well as Dr. Hibbert (On the Extinct 

 Volcanos of Neuwiedy p. 254.). The fire in the country of the Juhones is 

 just as likely to have arisen from the extreme heat of the weather setting 

 fire to the soil in the. first instance, as from an accidental ignition of gas; 

 though in both cases, probably, an evolution of inflammable gas occurred. 



