8 HISTORY of the SOCIElT: 



•This appearance continued for more than 20 minutes, when 

 it gradually vanifhed, giving place to thin fcattered vapours, 

 ■which, towards fqn-fet, began to overfpread the fky. Through 

 the enfuing night, I could not difcern the fmalleft trace of thefe- 

 meteors in the ilcy. 



This appearance, I find, is not altogether new. In the Annual 

 Reg'ijler for 1789, there is an account, extracfled from the Philo- 

 fophical TranfaBions, of an aurora borealis feen by day-light in 

 Ireland, by Dr Henry Usher, who, confidering himfelf as the 

 firft: obferver of this phenomenon, requefts that any perfon to 

 v\'hom a fimilar appearance »nay occur would communicate his 

 obfervations. There is indeed reafon to believe, that the phe- 

 nomenon occurs not unfrequently ; but unlefs it is attended to 

 very accurately, it will in general efcapc obfervatlon; nor fhould 



1 have at this time remarked it, had I not been engaged in ob- 

 ferving the folar halo. Whenever the fky, being for the mod 

 part cloudlefs, is fuffufed with thin pale vapours, efpecially if 

 difpofed in longitudinal ftreaks, obfervers fliould look out for 

 this phenomenon." 



1800. An account of two interfecfting rainbows, feen at Dunglafs 



Jan. 6. j,^ £jf). I.othian in luly laft, was communicated by Profeflbr 



two iiiterfca- Pi, A YF AIR. 



lug rainbows. 



" At Dunglafs, where I happened to be in the beginning of 

 July laft, our attention was called one evening, a little before 

 funfet, to a very large and beautiful rainbow, formed on a 

 cloud which hung over the fea, and from which a fliower was 

 falling at a confiderable diftance to the S. E. The fun was about 



2 ° high, fo that the arch was not much lefs than a femicircle, 

 with its highefl point elevated about 40°. At the point where 

 the northern extremity of this arch touched the horizon, ano- 

 ther arch feemed alfo to fpring from the fea, diverging from, 

 the former at an angle of 3° or 4°, on the fide toward the fun. 



This 





