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Dec. 29, 1870] 
NATURE 
175 

Florence of Worcester mentions it as having been seen in 
‘© A.D. 978.—At midnight [the 18th of the Kalends of May 
(14th April)], there was seen throughout all England a cloud, 
which was sometimes of a blood-colour, and sometimes fiery ; it 
afterwards broke out into rays of different colours, and disap- 
peared about daybreak.” (Chron. Flor. Worc.) 
Gaimar, in his ‘‘ History of the English,” repeats this in the 
following manner :— 
“© A.D. 978.—At night, as he [the murdered King Edward] 
lay in the moat, a heavenly light spread itself there ; the light was 
bright (no wonder !) it very much resembled the sun. This ray 
came over the holy body—the top of it was in heaven.” 
Putting down 978 as the correct date, and which is confirmed 
by William of Malmesbury (so far as the death of King Edward 
is concerned), this year may be accepted as the one in which an 
Aurora was seen. 
From the last date till the year 1052, I cannot find any men- 
tion of ‘‘blood”-phenomena, or direct references to auroral 
appearance, and again in this year the evidence is very vague ; it 
says :— 
A.D. 1052.—A tower of fire was seen at Ross-Deala, on the 
festival of St. George, during the space of five hours, blackbirds 
innumerable going into and out of it, and one large bird in the 
middle of it.” (Chron. Scot.) 
The next, still more puzzling, will be my last :— 
“« A.D. 1103.—In the province called Berkshire, in a place 
called Heamstede, J/ood was seen by many to flow out of the 
ground.” (Chron, Flor. Worc.) 
I think that it will now appear from this account that any 
attempt to lay down ove meaning for the whole of the numerous 
mentions of blood-appearances must fail, although it is, in a few 
instances, very clear that an Aurora is meant ; but it seems as if 
a distinctive interpretation must be applied to the entries above 
given. On the whole, it is quite certain that this phenomenon 
has been seen at very remote dates by the inhabitants of Britain 
and Ireland ; also that the enigmatical ‘‘ blood”’-miracles were 
not confined solely to Ireland, but seem to have been revealed 
alike to the Aé/¢ic inhabitants of England and Wales. I say 
Keltic, because I find the majority of records among the 
Chronicles to relate more especially to the Azcient Britons and 
Trish, and in many cases I believe (as one may judge from the 
above chronology) the style of poetical descriptions and form 
of mythical allusions are Keltic. The well-known Druidical 
Hymns, which appear in old Irish literature, are fair specimens 
of what I mean. One in particular concludes a mythical story 
with, ‘‘and the third (brother), guided by the lightning from his 
brother’s fingers, shoots an arrow at the swimming hag, who 
immediately disappears in a fool of blood.””* 
There are two vague poetical descriptions which I imagine to 
have been suggested by the Northern Lights, in Hesiod’s 
“‘Theogony,” where he describes the war between the Gods and 
the Giants in the West. (Elton’s Translation. ) 
He says :— 
The gods from Saturn sprung, and those whom Jove 
From subterraneous gloom releas’d to hght, 
Terrible, strong, of force enormous, burst 
A hundred arms from all their shoulders huge. 
(Lines 884—887.) 
5 : c . Through the void 
Of Erebus, the preternatural glare 
Spread, mingling fire with darkness. 
(Lines 924—926.) 
From astronomical calculations this war is stated to have taken 
place at the autumnal equinox in the year 756 B.C., and to have 
terminated at the era of Nabonassar ; so that such an appearance 
may possibly have assisted Hesiod in composing this poem. The 
Hindu astronomers also seem to have heard of, or seen a heavenly 
phenomenon, which I imagine to have been something like an 
Aurora, if the hypothesis be true, that with the ancients natural 
phenomena were invariably made the themes of their verse, and 
were shrouded in allegorical descriptions. The most remarkable 
passage I have met with occurs in the Mahabharata, Book i. 
chap. 15 (Wilkins’s Translation) :— 
“ They now pull forth the serpent’s head repeatedly, and as 
often let it go ; whilst there issued from his mouth, thus violently 
drawing to and fro by the Suras and Asuras, a continual stream 
of fire, and smoke, and _ wind, which, ascending in thick clouds 
replete with lightning, i Jegan to rain down upon the heavenly 
bands, who were already fatigued with their labour.” 
'* See Thierry, “Hist. de Gaull.,” and Pritchard’s ‘‘ Eastern Origin of 
Celtic Nations. 



The date of this supposed war is placed at 945 B.c. 
If the foregoing passages be compared with what the “ Prose 
Edda” * says, the hypothesis will not appear unreasonable. In 
| the chapter on ‘* The Twilight of the Gods, and the Conflagra- 
tion of the Universe,” it says :— 
Midgard’s protecting ward 
Bravely fights and slays 
‘The serpent monster, 
Then shall all mankind 
The earth abandon. 
Dimm’'d 's now the sun, 
In ocean earth sinks ; 
From the skies are cast 
‘The sparkling stars ; 
The fire-reek rageth 
Around ‘lime’s nurse, 
And /lickering flames 
With heaven itself playeth. 
The idea of ‘‘ flickering flames” is original, or, at least, not 
borrowed from the Eastern poets, and, in my judgment, could 
only apply to the Aurora, it may be an extraordinary appearance 
of it ; and as the Aurora, which has been seen in England this 
year, was also visible in India, I think it not at all unhkely that 
**a continual stream of fire,” which ‘‘ began to rain down,” is a 
record of a similar extensive phenomenon, 
Dec. 20 JouN JEREMIAH 
BALLOON ASCENTS FOR MILITARY PURPOSES 
Ill. 
“THE laws of the motion of a balloon, dependent on the change 
of level, appear to have been hitherto very little discussed 
from a scientific point of view. It is, however, a motion which can 
be procured very easily by throwing out a small quantity of 
sand, or of gas, if the balloon is properly constructed, and which 
is of great importance for any expedition in time of war, more 
perhaps than even the attempt at guiding its direction. The 
number of minutes required for descending from a great altitude 
as well as for ascending to a certain level, being the most im- 
portant consideration for the aGronaut endangered by the vicinity 
of some foreign force, this was analytically examined by M. Dupuy 
de Lome. It is the first instance that I know of such a dis- 
quisition since Euler worked his equations relating to the 
elevation of an aérostatic sphere supposed to be inextensible, and 
to be carried away in the atmosphere with a certain amount of 
motive power due to the small specific gravity of the included 
gas. ‘That beautiful analytical disquisition is the last ever written 
by the old philosopher, who was totally blind at the time. It was 
found written by him on the ¢ad/eaz noir where he was making 
his calculations on the very day before he died. He had received 
the intelligence of the great experiment tried by Mongolfier, 
and his excited brain had produced during the night that 
masterly piece of mathematical skill which was unhappily his 
last! ‘This contribution to scientific ballooning is to be found in 
the ‘‘ Mémoires del’ Académie des Sciences de Paris” for 1781, a 
date anterior to the experiment of Mongolfier, which is accounted 
for by ‘the issue of the volumes being always later than the 
date inscribed on them. Another singularity is that Euler 
speaks of gas for filling the balloon, while Mongolfier’s was 
merely heated air. We must not, however, give Euler the 
merit of having been the real inventor of Charliéres or gas 
balloon, as Mongolfier believed that he prepared gas by burn- 
ing damp corn-straw! Before returning to the questions con- 
sidered by Dupuy de Lome, we may be allowed to mention 
that the use of gas enclosed in a gasholder of any description, 
was suggested by Blake in his lectures at Edinburgh, and by an 
Italian philosopher transacting business in London. Carvalho 
tried to give to the idea of Blake the shape of an experiment, 
but uselessly, for the want of a proper varnish, which was 
invented by Charles a few months only after Mongolfier’s great 
experiment. 
The principal difficulty for strangers to the scientific working 
of an aérostat, appears to be to draw a broad line between the 
motive power or force ascenstonnelle, and the space offered for free 
dilatation without any gas being lost in the air, which space I 
will call the dilatation chamber, although generally there is no 
* Mallett’s ‘ Northern Antiquities” (Bohn’s Edition, 1847, p. 455). 
