CHAP. 7. 4. OF ELECTRICITY. 210 



communication from taking place between the 

 Earth and the Atmosphere above. But this 

 assertion as well as its explanation is quite 

 unfounded. Appearances similar to Northern 

 Lights are seen in low latitudes occasionally, an 

 instance of which I witnessed on Monday the 

 4th of December, 1820, at Hartfield, in Sussex. 

 About six o'clock in the evening, several lumi- 

 nous phaenomena, resembling the reflection in 

 the sky of large but distant fires, appeared in 

 the N. and N. E., and were distinctly seen by 

 other persons on several subsequent nights. 

 Refer to the Calendar at the end of this work. 



The Aurora has been explained by supposi- 

 tion that the Earth may have electric polarity ; 

 and the correspondence between the centre of 

 the Aurora and the magnetic poles, which has 

 been asserted, is a circumstance very worthy of 

 future consideration, as it tends to establish more 

 certainly the connexion between Electricity and 

 Magnetism, of which M. Benjamin M. Forster's 

 new and interesting experiment affords a further 

 proof.* 



* Mairan, in his Trait e Physique et Historique de I'Aurore 

 Boreale, 4to, Paris, 1754, observes that it resembles what is 

 called the zodiacal light; and supposes that they are both 

 emanations from the Sun. In the work above alluded to, 



