424 THE SUPPOSED SELF-LUMIXOSITY 



the Company than such as humanity dictated, he at once purchased 

 the release of all the prisoners, and from them the particulars of the 

 massacre were afterwards obtained. The Indians, in their negotia- 

 tions with Mr. Ogden, offered to give up the prisoners for nothing, 

 if he would guarantee that the United States would not go to war 

 with them, but this, of course, he could not do. Immediately on 

 the receipt of the news in Oregon, four hundred volunteers started 

 for the Walla- Walla River to punish the Indians, but they met 

 with very bad success, losing more men than they killed of the 

 enemy. Since that time a sanguinary war has been kept up without 

 a prospect of any other result but that of extermination to the 

 Indians. From time to time the newspapers furnish some stirring 

 or bloody incidents of the Oregon war, and this winter I read in an 

 American paper an account of the death of my old acquaintance, 

 Peo-peo-mox-mox, the Chief of the Walla- Wallas, who had been 

 taken prisoner, and was shot while attempting to escape. 



THE SUPPOSED SELF-LUMINOSITY OF THE PLANET 



NEPTUNE. 



BY COLONEL BABON DE EOTTENBUEG. 



Mead lefore the Canadian Institute, IStli March, 1856. 



The following observations upon the Planet Neptune are offered 

 for consideration, in compliance with the request of the Council of 

 the Canadian Institute for communications from the general body of 

 the members. They refer more especially to ideas advanced regarding 

 the supposed luminous atmosphere of that recently discovered planet, 

 on which so many circumstances have combined to confer a peculiar 

 scientific interest. These views regarding the self-luminosity of 

 Neptune may not have fallen under the notice of the members gene- 

 rally, as they appeared originally in the "British Quarterly Review," — 

 a periodical not re-printed, or generally circulated on this continent, — 

 and have not, even at home, attracted the attention they might seem 

 to merit. They are to be found in that Review, for the month of 

 August, is 17, in an article on " Recent Astronomy." After refer- 

 ring to the remarkable series of labours and deductions which finally 



