236 Iiitelliyeuce and Miscellaneous Articles. 



nection M'hich may throw light on a subject as yet so obscure should 

 not be altogether overlooked. As the sun must be recognised as at 

 least the primary source of all magnetic variations which conform to 

 a law of local hours, it seems not unreasonable that in the case of 

 other variations also, whether of irregular occurrence or of longer 

 period, we should also look in the first instance to any periodical 

 variation by which we may learn that the sun is affected, to see 

 whether any coincidence of period or epoch is traceable. Now the 

 facts of the solar spots, as they have been recently made known to 

 us by the assiduous and sj^stematic labours of Schwabe, present us 

 with phenomena which appear to indicate the existence of some 

 periodical affection of an outer envelope, or photosjjhere, of the sun ; 

 and it is certainly a most striking coincidence that the period, and 

 the epochs of maxima and minima, which M. Schwabe has assigned 

 to the variation of the solar spots, are absolutely identical with those 

 which have been here assigned to the magnetic variations." From 

 the results of his observations of the solar spots from the years 

 1826 to 18.50, M. Schwabe has derived the conclusion that "the 

 numbers in the table leave no room to doubt that, at least from the 

 years 1826 to 1850, the solar spots have shown a period of about 

 ten years, with maxima in 1828, 1837, and 1S48, and minima in 

 1833 and 1843." M. Schwabe has not been able to derive from the 

 indications of the thermometer or barometer any sensible connection 

 between climatic conditions and the number of spots. The same 

 remark would of course hold good in respect to the connection of 

 climatic conditions with the magnetic inequalities, as their periodical 

 variation corresponds with that of the solar spots. But it is quite 

 conceivable that affections of the gaseous envelope of the sun, or 

 the causes occasioning those affections, may give rise to sensible 

 magnetical effects at the surface of our planet, without producing 

 sensible thermic effects. 



XXXVI. Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles. 



ON A BRILLIANT METEOR SEEN AT SIDMOUTH. 



To the Editors of the Philosophical Magazine and Journal. 

 Gentlemen, Sidmouth, August 23, 1852. 



I HAVE been favoured by two ladies with the subjoined account 

 of a splendid meteor which they saw on the night of the 12th of 

 the present month. Probably the whole or a part of their letters 

 may be deemed worthy of insertion in your Journal. I should pre- 

 mise that the ladies were in company together when they saw the 

 meteor — that their accounts of it were afterwards written indepen- 

 dently of each other — that the time mentioned may be considered 

 within a minute or two of the mean time at Sidmouth — that the 

 degrees named were estimated only, as was also the bearing of the 

 meteor. Several other persons here saw the phaenomenon, but I have 

 been unable to obtain any accurate account of time, altitude or bear- 



