60 Captain Lefroy's Second Report on 



To each and all of these gentlemen^ as well as to those who 

 may have kept journals which have not yet reached me, I beg to 

 tender my warmest thanks. Nothing can exceed the care and 

 attention displayed by many of the registers, and their interest 

 has fully equalled my expectations. Without meaning to draw 

 invidious comparisons, I cannot deny myself the pleasm-e of 

 especially naming here those of Mr. Swanston, Mr. Clouston, 

 and Mr. Anderson ; the first of these is a model of completeness 

 and conciseness, Mr. Swanston having generally recorded the 

 state of the sky and the weather every hour from dark to 10 p.m., 

 and in terms which are always definite and expressive. 



The registers have been continued at the ]Military Guard- 

 rooms of the Royal Artillery in Canada, and at a great number 

 of stations of observation in the United States. I have now in 

 my hands, through the kindness of Professor Henry, Secretary 

 to the Smithsonian Institution, returns from upwards of a 

 hundred observers, for 1849, 1850, and part of 1851, at stations 

 scattered through all the States, from the Atlantic to the Mis- 

 sissippi. Not having received observations from any of the sta- 

 tions on the Saskatchawan or Lake Winnipeg, there is a pretty 

 wide blank, extending from Lake Athabasca to Lake Superior, 

 in the chain by which it was hoped to trace and identify dis- 

 plays from the polar circle downward to Canada, but I trust in 

 future years some at least of the intermediate posts will oblige me 

 with a journal ; and if each observer will bear in mind that others, 

 hundreds, and some of them thousands of miles off, are noting 

 down the features of the very displays he may be looking at, as 

 it appears to them, and that from a comparison of all these ac- 

 counts it is hoped to arrive at definite views concerning this most 

 singular phsenomenon, he cannot fail to see the value which 

 eveiy clear, distinct, and definite record of facts and particulars 

 will possess, and to acquire a greater interest in the subject than 

 the constant repetition of familiar descriptions might otherwise 

 afi"ord. 



It has been often stated vaguely that aurora appears every 

 clear night. This is certainly not true of any one station, as far 

 as the earlier hours are concerned ; we are still short of proof 

 that it is true in the widest meaning ; indeed, the statement, if 

 trae, would carry little weight with it without the addition of 

 dates, facts and particulars. These, however, our registers pro- 

 mise, for the first time, to supply. Obsei-vations begin to be 

 general in October 1850. In that month we have evidence of 

 it every night except five, 20, 21, 22, 23, 26, one of them 

 clouded eveiywhere, one of them full moon, the rest partially 

 clouded. In November 1850, every night but two, 22 and 23; 

 the former, however, of these was generally clear and no moon. 



