78 AT THE NORTH OF BE ARC AMP WATER. 
at intervals mingled with the booming which, 
for some unexplained reason, they make by night 
as well as by day; after as well as during the 
breeding season. 
A few minutes after two o’clock a large me- 
teor shot across a small patch of clear sky near 
the constellation Andromeda, and was quenched 
in the fog. From time to time other smaller 
ones flashed in brief glory in the same quarter 
of the heavens, and one brilliant fragment 
burned its way past Jupiter, as though measur¬ 
ing its passing glory with the light of the planet. 
The wind was falling, the temperature rising, 
and, following these two influences, the fog de¬ 
creased, until its only remnants clung to the 
ponds and rivers far below. Two thirds of the 
sky were clear by three o’clock. In the east, 
the Pleiades sparkled in mysterious consulta¬ 
tion ; farther north, Capella flashed her colored 
lights, and Yenus, radiant with a lustre second 
only to Selene’s own, threw off the clouds which 
for an hour had concealed her loveliness, and 
claimed from Mars the foremost place in the 
triumph of the night. Her reign was short. 
At a quarter after three I noticed that the cloud¬ 
bank which lay along the eastern and northern 
horizon was becoming more sharply defined by 
the gradual growth of a white band above it. 
A greater orb than Yenus was undermining her 
