194 Miscelianies. 
cessary instruments. An arrangement has been made between the Acad- 
emy and the Corporation of Harvard University, by which the instruments 
‘will be placed in the buildings recently erected at that University for as- 
tronomical and other observations, and a series of magnetic and meteoro- 
logical observations made with them by the gentlemen who have the 
charge of the Cambridge Observatory, in correspondence with the instruc- 
tions furnished by the Royal Society of London, and in co-operation with 
their own observers. we . 
22. Auroral belt of May 29, 1840.— About 9h. 20m. P. M. of Fri- 
day, May 29, 1840, a luminous belt, spanning the heavens from east 
to west, was seen by several persons in this city. When fully form- 
ed, about 9h. 22m., its width was from 3° to 5°, being widest and most 
luminous on the western portion; its altitude, at the highest part, 
about 85° above the southern horizon. Its light was similar and 
equal to that of ordinary auroral streamers. The extremities of the 
belt were 10° or 20° above the horizon, but their position was not 
particularly noted, and may have varied 10° or more from the E. and 
W. points. The northern edge of the belt was well defined; the 
southern was not very distinct. The belt slowly drifted southward, 
at the rate of about a degree per minute. At 9h. 30m., at which time 
the belt was brightest and most perfect, its northern edge was pro- 
jected on Arcturus. Just before the belt reached this star, there was 
a slight bending, concave to the north, in that part of the belt which 
-lay not far east of the meridian. ‘This occurred near that region of 
- the heavens in whieh (at this town) an auroral corona is manifested. 
The belt soon began to fade, and by 9h. 45m. was nearly extinct, but 
for ten minutes longer, a small remnant of it was visible in the south- 
west, which, just before it disappeared, passed to the south of Regu- 
lus. The summit of the belt was, at vanishing, about 10° south of 
Arcturus. This belt was apparently constituted in part of beams ob- 
liquely transverse to its length, but this character was on this oc¢a- 
_sion less conspicuous than has commonly been noticed in other cases: 
During the whole time the sky was obscured by haziness and partially _ 
by clouds. There was some auroral light about the northern horizon, 
but it had no visible connection with the belt. Soon after 10h. this 
light increased exceedingly; numerous streamers rose to the altitude of 
50°, and auroral waves flashed up nearly or quite to the coronal point. 
— auroral belt was seen at New York city, and doubtless at many 
ae ACER. if observations upon the position of the edge of the 
“S oapeap oo times were made at any considerable distance north or 
Seer pot New Haven, we might have the means of finding approxi- 
