194 Miscellanies. 



cessary instruments. An arrangement has been made between the Acad- 

 emy and the Corporation of Harvard University, by which the instruments 

 will be placed in the buildings recently erected at that University for as- 

 tronomical and other observations, and a series of magnetic and meteoro- 

 logical observations made with them by the gentlemen who have the 

 charge of the Cambridge Observatory, in correspondence with the instruc- 

 tions furnished by the Royal Society of London, and in co-operation with 

 their own observers. 



22. Auroral belt of May 29, 1840,— 4bout 9h. 20m. P. M. of Fri- 

 day, May 29, 1840, a luminous belt, spanning the heavens from east 

 to west, was seen by several persons in this city. When fully form- 

 ed, about 9h. 22m., its width was from 3° to 5°, being widest and most 

 luminous on the western portion ; its altitude, at the highest part, 

 about 85° above the southern horizon. Its light was similar and 

 equal to that of ordinary auroral streamers. The extremities of the 

 belt were 10° or 20° above the horizon, but their position was not 

 particularly noted, and may have varied 10° or more from the E. and 

 W. points. The northern edge of the belt was well defined ; the 

 southern was not very distinct. The belt slowly drifted southward, 

 at the rate of about a degree per minute. At 9h. 30m., at which time 

 the belt was brightest and most perfect, its northern edge was pro- 

 jected on Arcturus. Just before the belt reached this star, there \vas 

 a slight bending, concave to the north, in that part of the belt which 

 lay not far east of the meridian. This occurred near that region of 

 the heavens in which (at this town) an auroral corona is manifested. 

 The belt soon began to fade, and by 9h. 45m. v/as nearly extinct, but 

 for ten minutes longer, a small remnant of it was visible in the south- 

 west, which, just before it disappeared, passed to the south of Regu- 

 lus. The summit of the belt was, at vanishing, about 10° south of 

 Arcturus. This belt was apparently constituted in part of beams ob- 

 liquely transverse to its length, but this character was on this occa- 

 sion less conspicuous than has commonly been noticed in other cases. 

 During the whole time the sky was obscured by haziness and partially 

 by clouds. There was some auroral light about the northern horizon, 

 but it had no visible connection with the belt. Soon after lOh. this 

 light increased exceedingly; numerous streamers rose to the altitude of 

 50°, and auroral waves flashed up nearly or quite to the coronal point. 

 This auroral belt was seen at New York city, and doubtless at many 

 other places. If observations upon the position of the edge of the 

 belt at given times were made at any considerable distance north or 

 south of New Haven, we might have the means of finding approxi- 



