Notice of the late Aurora Borealis. Ill 



north poles N will lie to the left, and all the south poles S to the 

 the right. By this means an innumerable quantity of circular 

 elastic fluid magnets is formed round the conducting wire, in 

 which magnets every point may be considered as the neutral, 

 every north pole being immediately touched by a south pole, 

 which impedes its free action. One might obtain such a circu- 

 lar magnet without free poles by forming a connected steel ring, 

 touching it at the same time in several points of the circumfer- 

 ence with the south poles of different magnets, and then moving 

 these poles round the ring from right to left. This steel ring 

 would then have no perceptible poles ; but if it were any where 

 broken in two, the surface of the fracture on the left hand would 

 appear as a free south pole, and that on the right hand as a 

 north pole. In this manner it may be easily explained, why the 

 intensity decreases in the ratio of the simple distances from the 

 axis of the conductor : for if the radius ZE is double the size of 

 Ze, the same quantity of electricity which first filled the circle 

 ef must afterwards fill the doubly large circle ESF, and conse- 

 quently the intensity must decrease in the same proportion as 

 the distance increases. Hence it may also be easily explained 

 why the electro-magnetic action freely penetrates the conduc- 

 ting bodies as well as the non conducting. For the un-neutrali- 

 zed electric molecules excite in every body instantaneously the 

 opposite state, and are therefore attached to the body ; but 

 those that are neutralized cannot do it, and have therefore a per- 

 fectly free passage. According to this hypothesis, magnetism 

 would be nothing but neutralized electricity. It is therefore 

 possible that the aurora consists of such neutralized pairs of mo- 

 lecules which here, as in the completed electric circuit, obey the 

 laws of attraction and repulsion of the magnet. I present this 

 as a simple hypothesis, and confess that there still remain various 

 obscurities not easily to be solved. But it is not to be expected 

 that in such an obscure and difficult subject, the truth should be 

 discovered in a first attempt." 



We had selected from the newspapers, a number of inter- 

 esting and valuable statements respecting the appearance 

 of the Aurora Borealis,* at different places, but we are obli- 

 ged to omit them in order to make room for original com- 

 munications on other subjects. Possibly some of them may 

 be inserted, (should there be room) among the miscellanies. 



* Particularly that from the New Haven Journal, and from a Canandaigua 

 Paper. — Ed. 



