NOTES. XXX111 



ipsa putredo quidara lentus ignis est. Inest et stirpibus suus calor." Com- 

 pare Kepler, Epit. Astron. Copernicanse, 1618, T. i. lib. 1, p. 35.) 



( 91 ) p. 120. " There is another thing, which I recommend to the observa- 

 tion of mathematical men : which is, that in February, and for a little before 

 and a little after that month (as I have observed several years together), about 

 6 in the evening, when the twilight hath almost deserted the horizon, you 

 shall see a plainly discernible way of the twilight striking up towards the 

 Pleiades, and seeming almost to touch them. It is so observed any clear 

 night, but it is best iliac node. There ia no such way to be observed at 

 any other time of the year (that I can perceive), nor any other way at that 

 time to be perceived darting up elsewhere. And I believe it hath been, and 

 will be, constantly visible at that time of the year. But what the cause of it 

 in nature should be, I cannot yet imagine, but leave it to further inquiry." 

 (Childrey, Britannia Baconica, 1661, p. 183.) This is the first view and 

 simple description of the phsenomenon. (Cassini, Decouverte de la Lumiere 

 celeste qui paroit dans le Zodiaque, Mem. de 1'Acad. T. viii. 1730, p. 276. 

 Mairan, Traite phys. de 1'Aurore Boreale, 1754, p. 16.) I find in the singular 

 work of Childrey referred to, very correct details respecting the epochs of the 

 maxima and minima of annual and of diurnal temperature, and notices respect- 

 ing the retardation in the effects of maximum and minimum in all meteorolo- 

 gical phsenomeua (p. 91). It is to be regretted that we find in the same work 

 (p. 148) that the Earth is elongated at the poles, an opinion shared by 

 Bernardin de St.-Pierre : the author says that the globe was originally a true 

 sphere, but the constant increase of the masses of ice at the poles gradually 

 alters its figure, and, as the ice is formed from water, the quantity of water is 

 every where diminishing. 



< 92 ) p. 192. Dominic Cassini (Mem de 1'Acad. T. viii. 1730, p. 188) 

 and Mairan (Aurore Bor. p. 16) maintained that the phenomenon, which was 

 Been in Persia in 1668, was the zodiacal light. Delambre (Hist, de 1' Astron. 

 moderne, T. ii. p. 742) ascribes the discovery of the zodiacal light to the 

 celebrated traveller, Chardin ; but both in the Couronnement de Soliman, 

 and in several passages in the narrative of his travels (ed. de Langles, T. iv. 

 p. 326; T. x. p. 97), Chardin notices as "niazouk" (nyzek), or "petite 

 lance," only : " la grande et fameuse comete qui parut presque par toute la 

 terre en 1668, et dont la tete etoit cachee dans 1'occident, de sorte qu'on ne 

 pouvoit eri rien apercevoir sur 1'horizon d'Ispahan." (Atlas du Voyage de 

 Chardin, Tab. iv. from the observations at Schiraz.) The head or nucleus 

 of this comet was, however, seen in Brazil and in India. (Pingre, Cometogr. 



