366 



RURICOLA ON THE AURORA BORE ALTS. 



then were very extraordinary, and happened at a very critical time, 

 which occasioned their being taken notice of, as also their being men- 

 tioned by our historians, to which I may well add that none so copious 

 or remarkable had probably happened for many years before." In this 

 last suggestion, as to the copiousness of the lights, the learned writer 

 is perhaps warranted by the fact ; but I would specify one example of 

 the phenomenon, which was discovered about 7^ years before the date 

 in question, in this part of the British isles, and which is thus described 

 under the title of " A Northern Streaming, by Mr. Neve, of Maghra- 

 felt in the north of Ireland," county of Londonderry. I copy it from 

 " A Natural History of Ireland," published by George Grierson, Dub- 

 lin, 1 7^6* ; and I believe that it may be found in the Transactions of 

 the Royal Society, but for what year I know not. 



"On Sunday, Nov. 16, 1707* after a frosty morning and fair clear 

 day, wind north westerly, about half an hour after eight in the evening, 

 there appeared a very strong light in the north. The evening was 

 clear and starlight, only the horizon was darkened with condensed 

 vapours in the north, reaching, I guess, ten or fifteen degrees above the 

 horizon. Out of this cloud proceeded several streams or rays of light, 

 like the tails of some comets, broad below and ending in points above. 

 Some of them extended almost to the tail of Ursa minor, and all were 

 nearly perpendicular to the horizon, and it was as bright as if the full 

 moon had been rising in the cloud. But what I wondered at most was 

 the motion of the dark and lighter parts, running strangely through one 

 another in a moment, sometimes to the east and sometimes to the west. 

 It continued after I first saw it about a quarter of an hour, often chang- 

 ing its face and appearance as to form and light ; sometimes broken, 

 sometimes entire, and long rays of light in the clear sky, quite separate 

 from and above the cloud, and none below in the cloud," page .126. 

 The next page contains an account of " An Aurora Borealis at Dublin, 

 by an Unknown Hand ;" but the year of its appearance is not stated, so 

 that I cannot say whether it was observed before " the first year of the 

 first George's reign," or at or after that epoch. It seems, however, to 

 have been of great brilliancy and beauty. 



•This very curious phenomenon is much more known in the present 

 age than it was a century ago, perhaps from the more general spirit of 

 inquiry and habits of observation, and from the greater facility of dis- 

 seminating intelligence, as well as from the fact of the phenomenon 

 itself being, according to the prevailing opinion, of more frequent occur- 

 rence. I remember to have seen it in Sussex, not far from Chichester, 

 in December, 1804 ; and at sundry times and in various places in the 



