OF THE AURORA BOREALIS. 49 



Richmond, near London. I have noticed elsewhere the remarkable observation of 

 Admiral Wrangel, which he repeatedly confirmed to me verbally, viz : that during 

 the appearance of the aurora on the Siberian coast of the Polar Sea, he frequently 

 saw portions of the sky not previously luminous, which seemed to kindle when a 

 falling star shot across them, and continued bright for some time afterwards." 



In a paper which I had the honor to read before the American Association, at 

 their annual meeting, held at Albany, in 1851, on the Zodiacal Light, I stated 

 several ■presumptions, that the meteoric showers of November are derived from that 

 body. After recapitulating some of the reasons I had previously offered, to show 

 that the meteors of November have their origin in a nebulous body revolving 

 about the sun, I submitted the following presumptions in favor of the opinion that 

 the zodiacal light is the nebulous body itself. Such are the following : — 



1. The zodiacal light is a nebulous body. 



2. It has a revolution around the sun. 1 



3. It reaches beyond, and lies over the earth's orbit, at the time of the November 

 meteors, and makes but a small angle with the ecliptic. 



4. In the meteoric showers of November, the meteors are actually seen to come 

 from the part of the heavens covered by the extreme portions of this light. 2 



It may be added that, in the great showers of 1833, this light was remarkably 

 conspicuous ; and that soon after this period of the year, it suddenly makes its 

 appearance on the eastern side of the sun, being before seen only on the western 

 side — a change of position which indicates that, at this period, we pass by it, or 

 through it, so as to project it on opposite sides of the sun. 3 



It is well known that Mairan, in his treatise on the Aurora Borealis, first 

 published in the year 1733, 4 ascribed this phenomenon to the zodiacal light, 

 which he supposed to be the atmosphere of the sun. His opinion was embraced 

 by some, and opposed by others of the men of science of that age. Some of its 

 reasonings, the progress of science has clearly shown to be fallacious ; but others 

 have great force, and are still deserving of much consideration. After the 

 discovery of the presence of electricity in the atmosphere, and of its identity with 

 lightning, there was almost a universal conviction among philosophers, that elec- 

 tricity is the true cause of the aurora, and all further investigations on the sub- 

 ject were suspended, and the work of Mairan, the most learned of all those 

 hitherto written on the aurora borealis, fell into neglect, and has remained so ever 



1 At the meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, August, 1855, Rev. 

 George Jones, Chaplain in the United States Navy, presented a new and elaborate series of observa- 

 tions on the Zodiacal Light, from which he concluded that this phenomenon is owing to a ring around 

 the earth, instead of being, as heretofore supposed, an appeudage to the sun. Should this opinion prove 

 to be correct, it will not, perhaps, affect unfavorably the doctrine that the periodical meteors and the 

 aurora borealis are both derived from the zodiacal light. 



3 See Trs. American Association for the Advancement of Science, for 1851 ; or, Amer. Journal of 

 Science. » 



3 See this point fully explained in the American Journal of Science, Vol. XXV, p. 168, and Vol. 

 XXXIII, p. 391. 



1 A second edition, embracing additional matter of great importance, was issued in 1754. 

 7 



