198 Meteorological Retrospect of the laH Half of the Year\8\7. 



plain the pretended showers of sand, insects, &:c. have presented 

 two singular enough phaenomena in the state of New-York and 

 in the kingdom of Naples. The first was dinstinguished by some 

 extraordinary circumstances : — it raised a young man to a great 

 height, afterwards pitched him on a tree, from which it again 

 snatched him and conveyed him to the foot of a mountain at 

 some distance. The second happened on the 10th of August. 

 Some washerwomen at work beside a fountain, out of the city of 

 St. Angelo, saw in a serene sky a whirlpool advancing upon 

 them : seized with fear tliey fled in great haste ; immediately 

 afterwards the whirlpool dashed upon the fountain, absorbed all 

 the water out of it, and carried off the linen spread out on the 

 neighbouring meadows to a distance of more than a mile, wher.ce 

 it returned in about an hour to the environs of the fountain, 

 where it ceased, and redeposited all that it had carried off. The 

 linen was found torn and full of holes, as if it had been perforated 

 by gunshot. 



Celestial Phcenomena, 



In the period of time under our survey the spots of the sun 

 were successively dissipated and renewed. The grand spot, 

 which covered nearly all the disc of that orb on the 23d of July, 

 disappeared on tiie 4th of August. A great number of small 

 spots were afterwards formed, which gradually united and con- 

 centrated into one : — subsequently in the month of September a 

 division again took place into several groups, which between 

 the 23d and 27th of October totally disappeared, before having 

 touched the west hmb of the sun. On the 5th and 6th of No- 

 vember a large spot was observed on the southern part of this 

 orb : it is now divided into groups more or less numerous, some 

 isolated, others more approximated. 



On the 7th of August, Professor Stark, astronomer at Augs- 

 burg, observed a luminous band in the direction of the head of 

 Serpentarius in the constellation Hercules. (For this, see ac- 

 count already given in Phil. Mag, for August 181/.) 



On the 8th of September, at eight o'clock at night, there was 

 seen in the vicinity of Richmond, in England, a globe of fire pro- 

 ceeding in a direction from south to west. It appeared of con- 

 siderable size, and emitted from its top long streams of fire. Its 

 progress was slow; but all of a sudden it glanced up into the 

 heavens, and disappeared among the clouds. A similar phas- 

 nomenon was observed on the 19th of November, at three o'clock 

 in the morning, at Rochelle. 



On the 1 9th of September a beautiful aurora lorealis was ob- 

 served at Glasgow. (For which, also, see account in Phil. Mag. 

 for January 1813, by M. Chev. Dupin.) 



Baro- 



