858 "Transactions.— Miscellaneous. 
“The American Journal of Science,” * The Scientific American," Dr. 
Taylor's Notes in the Australasian, and one or two other less important 
periodicals. In a word, I have summed up in a somewhat judieial— 
perhaps presumptuous— way, the whole evidence that is before us, and have 
not hesitated to give expression to my own opinion from time to time, nor 
to add arguments or objections of my own, nor to make original comments 
and criticisms in a way that, if not equally judicial, may be thought at least 
equally presumptuous. 
Perhaps the present time may be considered specially suitable for a dis- 
eussion on the subject, innquueb. as the ppnaenpa have, if not totally 
disappeared, become ignifi ; and the most distinguished 
men in the scientific world parks "ab the ioi facts before them, given 
expression to their opinions as to the circumstances which have acted as 
operative causes. 
The Phenomena. 
It will not be necessary to describe much in detail the most widespread 
of the phenomena to which I am about to address myself, i.e., the sun- 
glows, for they must be well within the remembrance of every one of us. 
Indeed it would require the pen of a poet or the brush of a Turner or a 
Canaletto to do anything like justice to the display. Our almost uniformly 
clear skies have enabled us in this Nelson province to witness the splendour, 
perhaps, at its best; but even in the murky climate of England it has 
excited admiration. London Bridge, nightly during the months of Decem- 
ber and January, witnessed a concourse of people larger than usual; for the 
elear and open view of the western sky, which the broad bosom of the 
Thames permitted, revealed a picture in which imagination revelled and 
admiration delighted. When crowds of people are drawn nightly from ‘the 
little village" to the open country on every side to see the glows of the 
setting sun, we may be sure the display was not much inferior to our own, 
especially in Italy where the climatie conditions would assimilate the 
spectacle to that which we saw here. The character of the pieture is shown 
by the fact that many persons at first said the colouring was due to an 
aurora. These people soon reflected, of course, that that explanation would 
not do, as auroras do not appear.in the west, and are not necessarily con- 
nected with the setting sun, moreover the glow did not scintillate, and there 
Were no contemporaneous magnetic disturbances. In one ease, indeed, in 
the colony of Victoria (month of December), the display did merge into a 
veritable aurora—silver streamers appearing before all the red ones were 
gone—but that was an exceptional circumstance, and no one has asserted 
that there was any connection whatever between the two (Ellery, “ Na- 
ture”). We have descriptions of similar appearances in various parts of 
