NOTES. v 



70), and saw 160 Auroras in 210 nights, see Comptes-rendus de 1'Acad. 

 des Sciences, T. x. p. 289, and Martins' Me'te'orologie, 1843, p. 453 ; also 

 Argelander, in the "Vortragen, gehalten in der Konigsberg Gesellsohaft," 

 Bd. i. S. 259. 



( 173 ) p. 183. Captain John Franklin, " Narrative of a Journey to the 

 Shores of the Polar Seas in the years 18191822," pp. 552 and 597 ; 

 Thienemann, in the Edinburgh Philos. Journ. Vol. xx. p. 366 ; Farquharson, 

 in the same journal, Vol. vi. p. 392; Wrangel, Phys. Beob. S. 59. Parry 

 saw the Aurora borealis in plain day-light (Journal of a Voyage performed in 

 1821 1823, p. 156.) A nearly similar observation was made in England 

 on the 9th of September, 1827 (Journal of the Royal Institution, 1828, Jan. 

 p. 489). 



( 174 ) p. 183. On my return from America, I described, under the name 

 of " polar bands," cirro-cumuli, in which the small detached masses were 

 distributed at very regular intervals, as if by the action of repulsive forces. 

 I made use of the expression " polar bands," because their perspective points of 

 convergence usually appeared at first in the prolongation of the dipping needle, 

 so that the parallel lines of cirrus corresponded with the magnetic meridian. 

 Sometimes the point of convergence appeared to move first in one direction, 

 and then in the opposite ; and, at other times, to advance gradually in one 

 direction. These bands usually shew themselves completely formed only in one 

 quarter of the sky ; and their movement is first directed from south to north, 

 and then gradually from east to west. I do not think the movements can be 

 explained by variations in the currents of air in the higher regions of the 

 atmosphere. The bands are seen when the air is extremely calm, and the 

 sky very serene ; and they are much more frequent within the tropics than in 

 the temperate and frigid zones. I have seen the phenomenon develope itself 

 in a manner so strikingly similar on the Andes, at an elevation of 14000 

 French feet, almost under the equator, and in Northern Asia, in the plains of 

 Krasnojarski, to the south of Buchtarminsk, that it seems difficult not to 

 regard it as a process depending on very general and widely-diffused natural 

 forces. See the important remarks of Kamtz (Vorlesungen iiber Meteorologie, 

 1840, S. 146 ; and the more recent ones of Martins and Bravais (Meteorologie, 

 1843, p. 117.) Arago observed at Paris, June 23, 1844, in the day-time, 

 south polar bands, consisting of extremely light clouds, and saw dark rays 

 shoot upwards from an arc having an east and west direction. In page 181 

 of the text, mention is made of the appearance of black smoke-like rays in 

 brilliant nocturnal auroras. 



