1868.] 433 [ilageu. 



out the traces of the hair of the common goat ii])on the skins 

 of the crosses of tlie Angora and common goat raised at the 

 Cape of Good Hope, and observed that many of tlie fleeces 

 offered in our markets as the product of Angora goats 

 possessed the same character, facts which tended to confirm 

 the views just advanced that it is undesirable to cross the 

 Angora with the common goat. 



Concerning a Meteor seen in Prussia. Extracted from 

 Newspapers and Private Letters. By Dr. Herrmann 

 Hagen. 



On the SOtli of January a brilliant meteor was observed in the 

 provinces of East and AVest Prussia. Its brilliancy was uniform over 

 a region of about one hundred and sixty square miles. The time at 

 v,-hicli the meteor appeared, is pronounced, with slight differences, to 

 have been seven o'clock in the evening. An eye-witness in Hub- 

 nichen, avIio observed the appearance out of doors, describes it as a 

 great beehive from under which luminous bees were swarming; and 

 which, after its disappearance, left on the sky an illuminated wake. 



The light was so intense that even bright lamps in a room in which 

 the curtains were drawn were overpowered. It v/as seen throughout 

 Samland. Mr. Otto Hagen, while in a hotel in Ortelsburg, hastened 

 to a window, the curtains of which were ch-awn, believing that the 

 houses on the opposite sitle of the street were on fire. Dr. P. pub- 

 lished in the "Instcrburger" paper a description of the appearance 

 which he observed at Instcrburg. He says: nearly in the zenith sud- 

 denly appeared a star of the size and brilliancy of the ball of a white 

 roman candle, with a fan-shaped, comet-like tail ; it proceeded from 

 the north-west to the south-east, the dimensions and brilliancy of 

 the ball continually increasing until the apparent diameter was nearly 

 as large as that of the sun, and the eye could not bear the light. 

 Presently the comet-like tail changed into an extraordinarily brilliant 

 cone, more than twenty degrees in length, and its base a ball of fire, 

 'i'iie country was illuminated for some seconds, as if by a bright flash 

 of lightning, so that distant objects were seen more clearly than by 

 day. Some twenty degrees above the horizon the light suddenly 

 disappeared, the ball of fire ap])arently bursting into many hundreds 

 of glowing fragments. The phenomenon lasted about fifteen seconds. 



At Landsberg the meteor resembled a ball of eight or ten inches in 

 diameter, and approached the earth, in eight seconds of time, Irom the 

 north-west to the south-en st. In Lyck, after the appearance of the 

 intense light, distant thunder was heard. 



I'llOCEEDINOS B. 8. N. H.— VOL. XI. 28 MAY, 1868. 



