VOL. XL.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 135 



coutity of Huntingdon, Mr. Neve observed two parhelia, the first of which 

 shone so bright, that at first sight he took, it for the real sun, till looking a little 

 farther on his left hand, he was convinced of the mistake, by seeing the true 

 sun much the brightest in the middle, and a mock-sun on each side, in a line 

 exactly parallel to the horizon. He guessed their distance to be about 40 dia- 

 meters of the sun, or, as they usually appear, 23 degrees. That on the left 

 hand of the sun, when he saw it first, was small and faint, but in about 2 mi- 

 nutes time it became as large and bright as the other, and appeared at once as 

 two white lucid spots on each side the sun, east and west, seemingly as large, 

 but not so well defined : in about 3 minutes they lost both their colour and 

 form, and put on those of the rainbow ; the red and yellow in both very 

 beautiful and strong nearest to the sun, the other colours fainter. They became 

 as two parts of an arch, or segment of a circle, with the concave towards the 

 sun, only round at top, the light and colours streaming downwards, and tend-" 

 ing towards a point below. This continued for about 4 or 5 minutes, when the 

 colours gradually disappearing, they became as before, two lucid spots, with- 

 out any distinction of colours. They lasted a full hour, sometimes one brighter, 

 and sometimes the other, according to the variation of the clouds and air, as 

 he supposed. When he first saw it, it was exactly a quarter after eleven. There 

 had been a frost in the morning, which went away pretty soon, with a thick 

 mist, and between 10 and 1 1 o'clock cleared up, leaving only a haziness in the 

 air behind it : the weather quite calm, wind about n. w. 



These parhelia are commonly seen with a circle or halo round the sun, con- 

 centrical to it, and passing through the disks of the spurious or mock-suns. 

 But there was not the least appearance of such a circle here, it having only a 

 tendency towards one, when it was seen with the rainbow colours. 



The other phenomenon, was that pretty common one of the aurora borealis, 

 of an uncommon appearance. A little after 3 o'clock, the northern hemi- 

 sphere was obscured by a dusky red vapour, in which, by degrees, appeared 

 several very small black clouds near the horizon. The first eruption of the 

 lights was within a quarter of an hour, full east, from behind one of the small 

 dark clouds, and soon after several others full north. These streams of light 

 were of the same dusky red colour as the vapour, just appeared, and vanished 

 instantly. He saw 8 or 10 of these at once, about the breadth of the rainbow, 

 of different heights, several degrees above the horizon, which looked like so 

 many red pillars in the air ; and no sooner did they disappear, but others showed 

 themselves in different places. In about half an hour, this colour of the va- 

 pour gradually changed towards the usual white, and spread much wider and 

 higher ; and after that, appeared as common. 



