Aurora Borealis. 179 
The Magnetic Needle was watched attentively by Mr. E. C. Her- 
rick, and was observed to undergo extraordinary fluctuations,—at 
one time (7h. 41m.) deviating a whole degree westward of its mean 
position, and at another time, traversing 45 minutes of a degree in two 
minutes of time. The Barometer had previously been subject to 
uncommon variations. On the night of the 21st, between 11 and 
12 o’clock, it stood at 28.70 inches—a depression nearly or quite 
unexampled at this place. From that time it had risen gradually, 
and during the aurora, it stood at about 30.1 inches. Its entire range 
since Dec. 19th, when it was 30.91 has been very remarkable, since 
its maximum at this place in ordinary years, is rarely above 30.70, 
and its minimum seldom below 29 inches. Early in the evening of 
the aurora, the Thermometer was at 20° (Fah.) but sunk rapidly, 
and at 10 o’clock was only 4 degrees above zero, and before morn- 
ing fell quite to zero. 
The Zodiacal light was at that time very conspicuous in the south- 
west, and has continued to the present time, March 7th, considerably 
brighter than in ordinary years. 
From various accounts published in the newspapers, and from 
numerous private communications obligingly made to the Editor of 
this Journal, and to the writer, it appears, that this auroral exhibition 
was seen over a vast extent of country, and preserved, at points very 
remote from each other, a remarkable uniformity of appearance. Its 
limits are unknown; but we have already heard of it, in a form of 
the most imposing grandeur, as far north as Quebec, and other parts 
of British America to the eastward of that place, and as presenting 
a spectacle equally rare and beautiful as far south as the Island of 
Bermuda. ‘Throughout nearly the whole of this wide region, the’ 
phenomenon is identified by its crimson light, by its streamers and 
its arches, by its corona formed in the region of the pole of the dip- 
ping needle of each place, and by its return a little after 10 o’clock, 
after having once nearly faded away. 
At Windsor, Vermont, the description given by the editors of the 
Vermont Chronicle, corresponded very nearly to the appearances as 
exhibited here ; ; but they add, that on the following morning “ the 
mercury stood at THIRTY SIX DEGREES BELOW ZERO,—a more in- 
tense cold, by two degrees, than the morning of January 4, ay as 
measured by the same thermometer, with the same exposure.” At 
Troy, the same morning, the thermometer was, at 7 o’clock, fifteen 
degrees below zero. 
