15 



which supplies a means for measuring the velocity of the 

 stars, from which Dr. Huggins finds the motion of recession 

 of from 15 to 28 miles per second, and the motion of approach 

 amounting to 55 miles per second in the case of Arcturus. In 

 early scientific history, we hear nothing notable of meteorology 

 or its connection with any astronomical influences, either 

 from the Egyptians, Chaldeans, or Phoenicians. In the 4th 

 century before Christ, Aristotle relates to meteorology as being 

 confined to the region intermediate between the earth and the 

 region of the stars ; the subject itself including enquiries into the 

 nature of meteors, comets, and the Milky Way. The Egyptian 

 priests are related to have kept registers, in which they 

 entered notices of remarkable natural phenomena, such as 

 the rain-fall in Uj^per Egypt, which they considered to be 

 the cause of the inundation of the Nile. From the Chinese, 

 who had fixed observatories, early records were obtained, 

 some of which were employed by Laplace to determine the 

 ecliptic obliquity, but they convey no knowledge of physical 

 astronomy, such as solar spots, magnetism with its momen- 

 tary changes, electricity, aurora or zodiacal light, or any united 

 phenomena which emanate from the action of the sun. A 

 very striking example of the transformation of force from the 

 sun is given in planetary movements with very eccentric 

 orbits. A cometary orbit, whose greatest elongation should 

 extend beyond the distance of Neptune, while its perihelion 

 should be within the orbit of Mercury, would acquire a 

 velocity of from one to two hundred miles per second at peri- 

 helion, but at its remote aphelion its velocity would be 

 reduced to two or three miles per second. Perhaps the best 

 illustration on record of combined force from planetary con- 

 junctions, in which the earth was connected, is recorded as 

 having taken place November 27th, ] 703, when five of the 

 planets were in conjunction with the sun, Jupiter, the earth 

 and moon, Yenus, the sun. Mercury and Mars, at which time 

 the most frightful storm ever remembered swept over the 

 continent of Europe. There were blown down 800 houses, 

 400 wind-mills, 25,000 timber trees, 100 churches 

 unroofed, 300 sail of shipping lost, 900 small crafts, 1,500 

 sheep. The loss in London was over a million sterling. Sir 

 Cloudesley Shovel,with his fleet in the Downs, lost three ships 

 of 70-guns, one of 64, two of 56, and one of 46, besides 1,500 

 men, who perished on the Goodwin Sands. It was on that 

 day the whole structure of the first Eddystone Lighthouse, 

 together with its architect, Winstanley, and other inmates, 

 was blown into the ocean. 



Knowing, therefore, that these astronomical connections, 

 conjunctions, and appositions, together with other forces of a 



