
‘ 
Fuly x3, 1871] 
which, if the measurements of the entrance be correct, 
~ must have been at least 9 feet long and 7 feet high, placed, 
according to M. Lartet, to keep the hyaenas from the corpses 
of the dead. It need hardly be remarked that the access 
of these bone-eating animals to the cave would be alto- 
gether incompatible with the preservation of the human 
skeletons, had they been buried at the time. The enor- 
mous slab was never seen by M. Lartet, and it is very 
hard to understand how it could have been removed by 
one workman cutting a trench after a few hours’ work, 
And it certainly did not keep out the hyenas. In the col- 
lection made by the Rev. S. W. King from the interior, 
there are two hyana’s teeth, and nearly all the antlers and 
bones bear the traces of the gnawing of those animals. 
The cave, moreover, has /wo entrances instead of one, as 
M. Lartet supposed, when his paper in the Annales was 
published. ‘There are also in the collection above quoted 
—now presented by Mrs, King to the Christy Museum— 
two metacarpals of sheep or goat—animals which, as yet, 
have not been proved to have been living in Europe during 
the quaternary period, and which, probably, were intro- 
duced by neolithic races of men, as well as a fragment 
of pottery of precisely the same kind as that in the super- 
ficial deposit in Kent’s Hole, 
In a word, the evidence in favour of the interment in 
Aurignac being of a later date than the occupation seems 
to me to be overwhelming, and it does not afford the 
slightest ground for any hypothesis as to the belief of 
palzolithic men in the supernatural. On that point, up 
to the present time, modern discovery is silent, and nega- 
tive testimony is valueless, W. Boyd DAWKINS 


DAYLIGHT AURORAS 
WE have published several letters lately on this subject, 
in some of which doubts are suggested as to the 
reality of the phenomenon, The following extracts from a 
paper which we have received from Mr, Glaisher, will put 
the matter to rest :— 
The Aurora of Feburary 12, appearing in Daylight. 
“The accounts of aurorse appearing by daylight are very 
few indeed, yet the following reports made by two of the 
observers in the magnetic department of the Royal Ob- 
servatory, Greenwich, who called my attention to the ap- 
pearance of the sky and to the fixity of the arch, as well 
as to the apparent avoidance by the clouds of the clear 
space, together with the disturbed state of the magnetic 
elements at the time, seem to decide that the appearances 
were really due to an aurora appearing by daylight. 
“Mr. Wright says that at about noon the clouds in the 
north began to break, and soon after an almost perfect 
arch of clear sky, with its apex in the magnetic meridian, 
was visible. This space of clear sky kept its shape more 
or less perfect for more than an hour—a remarkable fact, 
as the clouds in the remaining portion of the sky were 
being driven rapidly across by a strong N.E. wind. The 
clouds immediately above the top of the arch seemed to 
be charged with electricity, the edges assuming the ragged 
appearance common to thunder-clouds. At times 
these clouds were slightly tinged with a reddish colour. 
About o" 45™ P.M., a very remarkable cloud of a reddish- 
brown colour passed slowly across the clear space from 
I. to W., being apparently much nearer to the observer 
than the ordinary clouds. Apart from the ordinary motion 
of the clouds from N.E. to S.W., caused by the wind, there 
seemed to be an apparent vibratory motion from I. to W. 
“Mr. Marriott says :—‘ About noon the clouds in the 
north began to break, and shortly after, there was a per- 
fectly clear space of blue sky in the form of an arch, the 
apex of the arch being in the magnetic meridian. At the 
circumference of the arch were very fine cumulus clouds, 
the edges of which were tinged witha reddish colour ; 
and along the whole of the north horizon there stretched 
NATURE 
209 
a bank of cumulus clouds to the altitude of 10° or 15° 
At about o! 20", just below the apex of the arch, I observed 
something like steam shooting up and moving from east 
to west ; this, I imagine, is what streamers would be like 
in the daytime. Ato" 45" asmall cloud of a brick-red 
colour traversed the clear space ; a few other clouds which 
passed over at the same time were not tinged, The arch was 
very welldefined for about an houror an hour and ahalf; and 
although the wind was blowing a gale from the north-east, 
and the clouds passing rapidly over the other portions of 
the sky, this space was not encroached upon by clouds. 
The altitude of the arch was about 50°, and the point at 
which the supposed streamers first appeared was about 
7° below the apex. 1 also observed auroral light at night. 
“On the rith day and till 6" 35" P.M. the movements 
of the several magnets were those of the ordinary diurnal 
changes, and at this time the western declination was 
19° 55’. At 6" 4o™ a sudden disturbance began ; the de- 
clination decreased 19’ by 7! 19", then increased to 
19° 56’ by 8"; at 8" 12™ it was 19° 47’, increased to 20° 4’ 
by 8" 29", was 19° 45’ at g' 11™, was 20° 6’ by 9" 58” P.M., 
then there were several small movements of 3/ or 4’ both 
to the east and to the west ; at 11" 30" the declination 
was 19° 58’, and by midnight had increased to 20° 12’, 
“The magnet still continued to move through small 
arcs, but gradually decreasing to 4? 10™ AM. on the 12th, 
to 19° 47’; then there were frequent changes of position, 
but such that the declination generally increased, and was 
20° 3’ at 8" 45" A.M. ; by ro" 4o™ it decreased to 19° 55. 
“There were frequent movements of the magnets 
between this time and till after noon. On the 12th day, 
at o! 30" p,M,, the declination was 20° 12’, at o' 45" it was 
20° 3; this movement of the magnet towards the east is 
remarkable as having taken place immediately before 
the passage of the reddish-coloured cloud from east to 
west across the clear space of sky, and attained its maxi- 
mum at about the time of the passage of the cloud. The 
movement of this cloud was not that of all other clouds, 
viz. from N.I. to S.W., and it would seem to be of auroral 
origin, 
“ Authentic 
very few. 
“The first instance I can find is recorded at p. 189, 
vol. ii. of the ‘ Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy,’ 
from which the following extract is made :— 
“An account of an Aurora Borealis seen in full Sun- 
shine. Ly the Rev. Henry Ussher, D.D., F.R.S., and 
M.R.I.A. 
“On Saturday night, May 24, 1788, there was a very 
bright aurora borealis, the coruscating rays of which 
united, as usual, in the pole of the dipping-needle. The 
next morning, about r1, finding the stars flutter much, I 
examined the state of the sky, and saw whitish rays as- 
cending from every part of the horizon, all tending to the 
pole of the dipping-needle, where at their union they 
formed a small thin and white canopy, similar to the lumi- 
nous one exhibited by an aurora in the night. These 
rays coruscated or shivered from the horizon to their point 
of union,’ 
“The only other account is extracted from the 5th vol. 
of the ‘ Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh,’ 
and is as follows :— 
An account of an Aurora Borealis observed in day- 
light at Aberfoyle, in Perthshire, on the 1oth of February, 
1799. By Patrick Graham, D,D., minister of Aberfoyle. 
“*On the roth of February, 1799, about half an hour 
past 3 o’clock P.M., the sun being then a full hour above 
the horizon, and shining with an obscure lustre through a 
leaden-coloured atmosphere, I observed,’ says Dr. Graham, 
‘the rare phenomenon of an aurora borealis by daylight. 
The weather for several days before had been intensely 
cold, and during the two preceding days much snow had 
fallen. On this day a thaw had come on, and the tem- 
| perature of the air was mild. The general aspect of the 
instances of auroral displays by daylight are 

