METEORS. 



155 



Observations with the altitude and azimuth 

 determined the variation of the needle in 1857 

 to be between 9°— 10° (W.). If this be correct, 

 it is gradually easting. In 1823 Captain Owen 

 found it to be 11° 7' (W.). 1 So, upon the oppo- 

 site coast, the variation laid down in our charts 

 of 1816 as 20° (W.) has gradually declined to 

 between 18° 30' and 19° (W.). 



Of exceptional meteoric phenomena I can 

 speak only from hearsay, no written records ex- 

 isting upon the island. A single earthquake is 

 remembered. In the early rains of 1816, at 

 about 4 p.m., a shock, accompanied by a loud 

 rumbling sound, ran along the city sea-front, 

 splitting the Sayyid's palace, the adjacent mosque, 

 and the side-walls of the British Consulate, in. a 

 direction perpendicular to the town. It was 

 probably the result of igneous disturbance below 

 the coralline, and it tends to prove that the island 

 was originally an atoll: some, however, have 

 explained it by a land-slip. Three meteors are 

 known since 1813. In December of that year 

 a ball of fire was visible from windows facing 

 the north ; it disappeared without a report. 

 The most remarkable was a bolis, which, about 



1 The Consular report of 1859 gives Captain Owen's vari- 

 ation. 



