Notes upon the Dark Days of Canada. S23 



appear that any other experiment was made with it, so that we 

 have no farther data to determine its quaUties, a circumstance 

 much to be regretted.* 



I shall now lay before the society, some accounts of the more 

 recent appearances of the 3d of July 1814, which will be found 

 to be very similar to those which were observed en the 16th of 

 October 1785. These accounts consist principally in four nar- 

 ratives, which I shall give at large. One from the pen of an offi- 

 cer of the Royal Engineers, who is supposed to be Captain 

 Payne, describes the appearances at the Bay of the Seven Islands 

 above Anticosti, on the 2d and 8d of July. The next describes 

 the appearances during the 2d at Cape Chat, from observations 

 made by some officers, who were on board the Sir William 

 Heathcote transport, which lay the whole of that day at anchor 

 in the river St Lawrence, at that point. The third contains 

 some additional observations respecting the appearances on the 

 2d of July, made on that day in another ship which also 

 lay off Cape Chat ; and the last narrative describes the appear- 

 ances of the 3d day of July, upon the banks of Newfound- 

 land, of which I was an eye-witness. It is taken from a Jour- 

 nal of a voyage to England, which I made at that period in the 

 Phcenix, from Quebec to England. 



Before I enter upon these narratives, I beg leave to premise, 

 that the darkness of the 2d of July 1814 does not appear to 

 have extended much beyond Cape Chat. A mixture of ashes, 

 and a black substance in powder, fell in partial showers at Ka- 

 mouraska ; and the day was there observed to be dull and 

 gloomy f , but it was not considered to be peculiarly dark, and 

 on this side of Kamouraska it does not appear to have attracted 

 any particular notice ; at Quebec also it exhibited nothing ex- 

 traordinary, except that yellow tinge upon the clouds, bordering 

 the line of the horizon to the north-cast quarter of the heavens, 

 which has already been mentioned, and is not unfrequently seen 

 from the walls of the garrison. 



The narrative of Captain Payne is taken from Tilloch's Phi- 

 losophical Magazine, and Mr Tilloch's correspondent makes the 

 following introductory remark upon it : — " Your philosophical 



• Quebec Gazette, 27th October 1785. 

 •\ Information from several persons. 



