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 SCIENTIFIC INTELLIGENCE. 



METEOROLOGY. 



1. Aurora Bor calls. — A paper was read at the Royal Society, 

 Jan. S9. 1 8Ji!4, on a definite arrangement and order of the ap- 

 pearance and progress of the Aurora Borealis, and on its height 

 above tlie surface of the earth ; by the Reverend James Far- 

 quharson, minister of the parish of Alford, in Aberdeenshire ; 

 communicated by the author. The results of the numerous 

 observations of the author on the Aurora Borealis, which on se- 

 veral occasions were made under very favourable circumstances, 

 had already been announced in a short paper published in 1823 

 in the Edinburgh Philosophical Journal ; and it was concluded 

 from them, that the Aurora Borealis has in all cases a determi- 

 nate arrangement and figure, and follows an invariable order in 

 its appearance and progress ; that the pencils of rays, or stream- 

 ers as they are called, generally make their first appearance in 

 the north, and, as they rise from the horizon, assume the form of 

 an arch, extending from east to west, and having its vertex in 

 the plane of the magnetic meridian ; the arch itself being at right 

 angles to the plane. While the arch is near the horizon, its 

 breadth from north to south is considerable, and the streamers 

 of which it is composed appear to be nearly at right angles to 

 the general line of the arch, their directions converging to a 

 point a few degrees to the south of the zenith. As the earth 

 moves forward towards the zenith, its lateral dimensions appear* 

 to contract, the intensity of its light increases, and the direction 

 of the streamers still tending to the same point in the heavens, 

 approaches more nearly to parallelism with that of the arch. 

 When it has passed the zenith, and arrived at the above men- 

 tioned point, a little to the south of the zenith, the arch is seen 

 as a narrow belt, three or four degrees only in breadth, and 

 with well defined edges. In its further progress southwards, it 

 again enlarges in breadth, and exhibits in a reverse order the 

 same succession of changes as before. Hence the author con- 

 cludes, that the streamers have individually a position nearly 

 vertical, or parallel to the magnetic dip ; and they form a thin 

 fringe, stretching often to a great distance from east to west, bX 



