Robb on Superficial Deposits in Canada, 387 



BosANQUET, 8th January, 1861. 



• "One singular occurrence which happened on the 6th 



inst., I will state as fully as my time will permit. Having retired 

 to bed for the night about 9 o'clock, p. ra., we had scarcely lain 

 down when my wife became alarmed, by the appearance of flashes 

 of light entering our bedroom windows ; and supposing the house 

 on fire, to satisfy her I got up, looked out and around, and found 

 2lll right. I noticed the flashes of light before my wife did, but 

 supposing she might be alarmed needlessly said nothing. After 

 laying down, it appeared two or three times again, the light 

 continuing for about two seconds or so each time, accompanied at 

 this time by a dull rumbling noise of about six or seven distinct 

 pulsations. The light appeared to shine and the noise to come 

 from a point about four or five chains up the hollow above the 

 large spring north of the house, and within two or three chains 

 of the house. The sky was somewhat clouded at the time ; the 

 sounds were very distinct and abrupt ; and the reflection of the 

 light appeared a mixture of pale red and intensely bright but miH 

 light. 



" Next morning a neighbour met me on the road, and asked me 

 what I thought of the curious ' phenomenon,' as he called it, we 

 had lately. On asking him what he referred to, he stated that his 

 son-in-law, who has lately built a house on the corner of the clear- 

 ing next to us, and in the line of, and between two of those pits 

 or depressions the range of which I pointed out to you the day 

 you left us — the two pits and house range S. E. with the hollow 

 below our house, where the deep spring is, and about 25 or 30 

 chains S. E. from the spring — his son-in-law told him that he 

 heard curious noises the previous evening, that the log-house shook, 

 and some tin dishes were thrown from the shelves to the ground 

 and that next morning he observed a line of vapor along the line 

 of the depressions, which vapor seemed to be ejected upwards in 

 several places with considerable force ; it was about daylitrht the 

 next morning that the vapor was seen. I noticed it too when I 

 went out early in the morning, at which time there was a rapid 

 thaw. I went to the great spring to see the eflfect of the thaw on 

 the ditches. I did not then notice any difference, except a depres- 

 sion in a part of the hollow below the spring, as if of late occur- 

 rence, and a large increase in the limbs, twigs, etc., which still 

 continue to be thrown up. For the last two weeks the spring has 



