66 Notices respecting New Books. 



done without fear and without favour, yet with practical ability, 

 and for publishing it in such a form that every observer shall be 

 both able and found willing to read deeply therein before entering 

 into the coming Solar Cycle, the auroral displays of which who can 

 attempt at present to describe or predict ? 



This, then, evidently is even the pressing time for such a book ; 

 and now verily here it is before us — a handsome quarto volume of 

 above two hundred pages, well printed, bound, cut round the edges 

 in the American manner, so as to be ready for immediate deep peru- 

 sal or rapid reference — decorated and additionally explained by many 

 fine engravings, both chromo- and monolithographs, while by its 

 size and shape it is peculiarly adapted to lie open on the table for 

 consultation with other similar-sized astronomer's books. And to 

 whom do we owe such an addition to our scientific literature, this 

 book of the time, this probable foundation and help for future dis- 

 covery ? 



Not to any large Society or public observatory or Government 

 office of any kind or degree. It is all the voluntary, spirited, 

 generous work of a private gentleman, J. Rand Capron, Esq., 

 already favourably known in the ranks of modern physicists by his 

 volume of ' Photographed Spectra,' prepared in his country-house 

 at Gruildford. And any one who has ever once met with him 

 knows that he has not only a love for the present subject, but an 

 untiring energy in working at it himself, unflagging spirits in 

 keeping up the enthusiasm of others, an admirable battery of 

 telescopes (both refracting and reflecting), spectroscopes, elec- 

 tric tubes, and photographic apparatus, the ability to use them 

 all, and the generosity of soul to desire that any one and every one 

 else shall profit by all that he knows and almost all that he pos- 

 sesses, so long as something more shall thereby be discovered touch- 

 ing the Aurora. For vive aurora-observation ! vive aurora-research ! 

 and especially vive aurora- spectroscopings ! form the animating spirit 

 which vivifies every page of Mr. Capron's most timely publication. 



The work is divided into three parts, whereof the First is his- 

 torical chiefly, and descriptive of the phenomena of the Aurora as 

 appreciated by humanity in general, age after age. Collective is 

 it also most extensively of all the theories which the busy, various, 

 inquiring mind of man has formed concerning the nature and causes 

 of .Aurora, its why and wherefore, together with the phenomena 

 which influence it and which it may influence in turn. In this 

 part, therefore, figure frequently the honoured names of Lemstrom, 

 Becquerel, Loomis, De la Bive, and Plante, amidst an encyclo- 

 paedic collection of other authors of more or less note ; and there 

 are many pictorial illustrations. 



Foremost amongst these pictures we are certainly not inclined to 

 put one of the most ambitious of them, a chromolithographic copy 

 of an oil-painting from Norway ; for it is to us crude, shallow, 

 without atmosphere, and betraying very limited observation in the 



