no 
On the Value of Water as a Moving Power. 
not in open day light : but whether of the meteor kind, or what 
sort of bodies they might be, I could not conjecture.” 
From what has been already stated, there can, I presume, be 
little room to doubt, that the phenomena described by Mr Mar- 
tin are to be accounted for in the same way as the phenomenon 
observed by M. Hansteen ; and that the “ small, bright, round 
bodies running towards the sun from the dark part of the room,” 
were nothing more than a few birds, at a considerable distance, 
gliding through the air * 
Art. XX.—Oh the Value of Water as a Moving Power for 
Machinery , illustrated in an extractfrom a Report in regard 
to the Water of Leith. By Professors Leslie and Jameson. 
At the request of Michael Linning, Esq., we accompanied him 
on Monday, the 28th of April, along the course of the Water 
of Leith to Harper’s llig, on the slope of the Pentland Hills, 
the proposed site of a reservoir. There we found a defile open- 
ing into a natural basin of considerable extent, which, on exami- 
nation, appeared to us capable of being easily and safely em- 
banked. Next day we visited the Harbour of Leith. We have 
since compared our observations with the several statements laid 
before us ; and having framed some calculations on the authori- 
ty of Knox’s accurate county map, we now beg leave to make 
our general report. On the whole, we accede to the opinions 
expressed by those able engineers, Mr Stevenson and Mr Bur- 
• The Editor having mentioned to an astronomical observer the curious fact of 
bodies being seen in a telescope directed in the day-time to a planet in the neigh- 
bourhood of the sun, he told him that he happened to visit a practical astronomer 
of great reputation, who resided near the Regent's Park, London, in the summer 
of 1821, and found him employed in observing the planet Venus, then within little 
more than a degree of the sun’s disc, with a Newtonian telescope. This astrono- 
mer, and also his visitor, in the course of half an hour, repeatedly observed a phe- 
nomenon of precisely the same nature as that recorded here by Mr Dick. Small 
shining bodies passed across the field of the telescope, in every direction, not un- 
like the planet, and only to be distinguished from it by their motion. While the 
observers were admiring this phenomenon, a distinguished philosopher joined 
them ; and, upon the circumstance being mentioned to him, he spoke of it as an 
appearance with which he was quite familiar. He said that he had regarded the 
bodies seen in the telescope as nothing more than the downy seed of some plant float- 
ing in the air, and strongly illuminated by the sun. 
