seen in London, September 25, 1827. 397 



the air, for a few days, was felt to be cooler than before. 

 It has been said, that a gale of wind, from the south-west, is 

 alwaysfto be looked for within twenty-four hours after the 



• -it/'. ^ ' • 



**T. The astrt)nomrcal writer, already more than once men- 

 tiOT^ed, speaking of the Aurora of the 25th of September, de- 

 scribes it as ** that mysterious phenomenon ;" and Mr. Adams, 

 the meteorological correspondent of the publication referred to, 

 r^6Mt'ii ak, '** perhaps, as conspicuous as any that has ever 

 beeh'sefen in England*;" so that, assuming these impressions 

 in both instances to be well founded, neither the present state 

 of ^science upon the one hand, nor the specimen of the phe- 

 nomenon upon the other, are such as to discourage either of 

 the objects of the remainder of these pages ; namely, the one to 

 contribute, as fully as possible, to the completion of a faith- 

 ful account of the Aurora, as seen in London upon the late 

 occasion, by uniting, and by analysing the descriptions that 

 Hkve' caught already the eye of the writer; and the other, to 

 correct, and to enlarge if it should be practicable, the natural 

 history of this description of meteor, by the comparison of 

 what has hitherto been usually written upon the subject, either 

 descriptively or philosophically, as well with the results of 

 the late actual observations, as with the several facts or 

 oprnidns more anciently registered. According to some, the 

 interval which had elapsed, since an equal or a superior display 

 of the phenomenon was witnessed in London, is twenty-four 

 yiedird/'arid, according to others, thirty-six; nor is the scanty list 

 of^^kteples scientifically recorded, at all inconsistent, from the 

 wide separation, as well as irregularity of its dates, with such a 

 viiB'<v'*bf the iilfrequency and uncertainty of any considerable 

 appearance in other southern latitudes. The opportunity, 

 therefore, now offered, ought not, perhaps, to be neglected; and 

 the writer is not wholly without the prospect, that, upon a re- 

 examlnktion, both of opinions and facts, some safe and inevi- 

 table coTiClusions may be elicited, both as to the history and 

 the -ttik>if^'6f the "tbeteor; hithierto, . th6 one h&rtiiy '^received, 



• Meteorological Journal, Literary Gazette, Sept.29tli. 

 OCT.— DBC. 1827. 2 D 



