VOL. XXXVIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 645 



Hercules, continued for a longer time up to the very zenith. In a quarter of 

 an hour this sportive scene was ended. Yet all that night a thin hght pos- 

 sessed the northern part of the horizon. 



By these and other observations M. Weidler had taken of this northern 

 light, he was more inchned to Dr. Halley's surmise, that its seat is about the 

 magnetic pole, or at least that its motion is in some measure governed and de- 

 termined from thence. 



As to the effect of the aurora borealis, it does not hitherto sufficiently appear, 

 only M. Weidler observed that generally one or more very clear days immedi- 

 ately succeed it. The Swedes and Norwegians, to whom this phenomenon 

 frequently appears, are said to have learned by long experience, that the northern 

 light, when it shines more frequently about the beginning of autumn, portends 

 milder weather and a plentiful harvest. To this hypothesis agree the experi- 

 ments taken at Witemberg in autumn 1731 ; for, on the 4th, 7th, 8th, 10th, 

 and 23d of October 1/3!, n. s. a very frequent and bright lumen boreale was 

 observed, which was succeeded by such seasonable weather, that corn and fruit 

 were very plentiful in 1 732. 



Of the destroying the Caterpillars and Locusts that infested the neighboiiring 

 Parts of iVittemberg. Bij the same. N° 432, p. 294. From the Latin. 



Among the particular observations of the year 1732, the following may be 

 worth mentioning, viz. the destroying the caterpillars and locusts, which for 

 several years before had in a grievous manner devoured up the fruits of the 

 earth in the northern parts of the circle of Saxony, the Marche of Branden- 

 burgh, in Lusatia, &c. In the spring of 1732 both these sorts of insects were 

 produced in incredible numbers. The caterpillars in several places soon de- 

 stroyed all the leaves both of barren and fruit trees; and the locusts likewise 

 again threatened the greatest destruction to the fruits of the earth as in the pre- 

 ceding year: the country people therefore began to dig several pits, and gather 

 the locusts that had not strength enough to fly, into them, and so cover them 

 with earth and kill them. 



But this contrivance would have been of little avail, had not these insects 

 been weakened and destroyed by some inclemencies of weather; in such man- 

 ner that they all soon perished the beginning of the summer, before they could 

 propagate; for, after the kindly heat of the sun, about the beginning of April, 

 1732, o. s. had invited them from their nests sooner than ordinary, this heat 

 was succeeded by a sudden severe cold for some nights, and by cold and plen- 

 tiful showers of rain in April and May ; and afterwards by constant and plentiful 



